An Irresponsible Oath

This is sort of a DnD / PnP RPG campaign prompt:

When you all were children, you were playing in an forgotten shrine you found in the forest.  Through your play, you accidentally freed a demon from where it was sealed by speaking.  Laughing, it flew away to do harm unto the world.

For reasons best known to the minds of 10-year-olds, you all swore an oath to never tell anyone else about the demon or about releasing it.  You even followed the stories and bound it in blood with the help of a small knife.

And lo, it worked - one of you tried to tell your mom about what happened, but, as described to the rest of the group, the words wouldn't come out of your mouth.


It is now over a decade later, and you are all adults, starying careers.  Freeing the demon is long since forgotten by most of you - it flew away and never came back.

Except... a messenger brings a report of a growing darkness to the north, and when you try to share the gossip with a friend... the words don't come out of your mouth.

It's the same demon.

You're older now.  You understand responsibility.  You gather your friends, the only ones you can speak to about the demon.  You all released the demon unto the world.  Isn't it your responsiblity to try and do something about it?

The Storm Isles

Far to the south, uncomfortably close to the Boiling Sea, are the Storm Isles: A series of highly volcanic islands drenched in constant rainfall and frequent hurricanes. Two gods inhabit these islands: The Great Dragon-god of Earth and The Great Dragon-god of Sky, along with their plentiful demigod children, the dragons that are the children of those demigods, and, of course, the Dragonborn themselves, the mortal creations of those powers.

The lands themselves are rich in a surprising amount of tenacious plant-life. The constant rain and volcanic ash provide nutrients both for a well-rooted trees and forests of seaweed, which in turn provide the environment for other local creatures. The local populations consumes large amounts of seafood (fish, whales, seaweed), and consider land-based food something of a delicacy, one well worth trading for.

The dragonborn constitute the majority of the island population, mostly living in cities carved into the sides of volcanic overhangs. This protects their cities from the worse of the erosive effects of rainfall, and protects them from the frequent lava flows. The dragons themselves are also said to use volcanic caves, though some rumors say that the children of the Great Dragon-god of Earth have been seen erupting out of the volcanoes themselves.

The Storm Isles are famed for their ceramic production, both in terms of artwork, but also in larger, more practical pieces, including high-end armor and weapons, along with . Glassworking is another specialty, with the dragonborn famed for creating larger, clearer, stronger panes of of glass than anyone else in the known world.

Trade with the Storm Isles is perilous but rewarding. Human traders use specially crafted ‘turtleboats’, and ride the currents down to the islands. The trip back is tricker, but is made directly north from the center of the islands, where the currents pulling into the Boiling Sea are at their weakest - the turtleboats put up their stubby fins and ride the winds back north. Neither passage is particularly pleasant, as in addition to the storms, the turtleboats seal all their occupants inside for over a week.

Most travelers balk at the journey, but outside of trade, the Isles provide an unique opportunity to talk with the reclusive and civilized metallic dragons, whose incredible longevity provides a window into the past, and a way to leave messages for the distant future. Many treaties are often read to the dragons, to avoid confusion hundreds of years down the road, and sometimes entire diplomatic meetings will unfold under the watchful eye of the metallic dragons, or even before Leximundi herself, the golden demigod of laws and agreements.

Fantasy Races Reimagined - Races of the Sunless Setting

The Sunless setting, as can be surmised from the name, is a setting where the sun has mysteriously vanished, leading to the biosphere mostly dying off, leading to the waning of ambient magic, leading to the collapse of the magical surface civilizations… and leading to a vast exodus into the abandoned caverns of the dwarves. The civilization that remains and persists has little magic and is technologically mostly late medieval, save for electricity, which is decently understood due the importance of creating breathable air from water.  The setting is what I would describe as ‘low magic’ – magic exists, but since everything must be cast from one’s own life-energy at a high price, it’s not exactly useful or common.

I am using the Sunless setting here to highlight psychological / cultural differences between fantasy races.

The next post will use a different setting to highlight the adaptation of a set bunch of fantasy races in an PnP RPG for a particular setting.


Humans:
There are humans in this setting.  I’m not a fan of humans in settings, as readers tend to find humans more relatable, which in turn skews the perception of the other races as relative to the humans, rather than relative to all other races.  Alas, most of my readers are human, so there is some demand for humans.

Human physiology:
Humans have a variety of (brownish) skin colors, hair colors, and eye colors.  They are physically strong compared to elves and gnomes, but not as strong or tough as orcs.  They have some amount of magical ability, but do not live in it like elves.  They are noted for having particularly lousy vision in the dark.

Human psychology and culture: Humans control many of dwarven cities and other settlements, being strongly inclined towards hierarchical rulership.  Humans tend to welcome orcish labor, but dislike orcish culture finding them unruly. Meanwhile, they are altogether suspicious of gnomes, and find elves disheartening to be around.

Orcs:
I decided on orcs as a major race because I wanted something physically stronger than a human, but perhaps not as smart.  I also wanted a race that was known for raiding others, but not necessarily villainous.  What fantasy race is associated with “strong, raiding, not smart”? Orcs, mostly, though the “not smart” bit seems to be a question of how they are seen through the eyes of the protagonists.

Orc physiology:
The strongest of the major races, and the hardiest as well.  Orcs have a variety of greenish skin colors, prominent jaws and teeth, and the best ability to see in the darkness, though they do need some light.  Of the living races, orcs have the least ability with magic.

Orc psychology and culture:
Orcs are not that bright.  Numbers go put to how many fingers (and “many”), abstract thought tends to get lost, etc.  Orcish culture involves a strong loyalty to the group (clan), and all other matters are seen in terms of contribution to the group.  An orc’s value is generally a question of how much they contribute to the group, and their place in society is their role in the group.

Wealth and ownership differ from the private ownership of others to a question of “Do I currently need this object?”  If you need it, and it is not currently being used, then take it and use it.  This, obviously, causes some confusion with the other races, as humans, gnomes, and elves all have the concept of private ownership, and don’t take well to orcs ‘borrowing’ their stuff (particularly since orcs don’t return objects of their own initiative, but expect that if the other party needs the object, they will come and get it – other cultures call this ‘stealing’).

Place in society does not contribute to social standing, as every role is necessary.  Instead, the value of contribution is noteworthy.  Since most work in orc clans is relatively unskilled, orcs that find their work isn’t valuable will seek out some other task that is presently more needed, and contribute there instead.  Doing work is generally a matter of pride.

Orcs and the other races:
Those outside of the clan are not seen as people, precisely – orcs are known for raiding human and gnome settlements, and even fellow orcish ones without a shred of remorse.  They are not taking what is not presently not needed, they are taking anything.  None of the social rules apply to anyone outside of an orc’s group, and pillaging crops is not seen as any different from growing one’s own crops – both are contributing food to the clan.  This leads to a lot of embitterment.

The other practice that occurs during raids is the kidnapping of other races.  While orcs are not particularly clever, they are, in fact, rather aware of this shortcoming.  If the group is lacking some vital skill, they will attempt to find someone with that skill and bring them into the group, willingly or not.  Orcs are also aware that non-Orcs often have a hard time understanding where their labor is most valuable, and will direct non-Orcs within the clan to do what is needed.  Often a gnome kidnapped during a raid will find herself in charge of cataloguing the loot, then put to work repairing some machinery that is beyond orcish knowhow.

One strange consequence of this practice is that non-orcs often find themselves thrust into positions of planning and leadership, on account of their advanced cognitive ability.  Often an orcish clan will be run by non-orcs.  Of course, like all roles in society, this is temporary, right up until someone else can do it better, or the non-orc is needed more in some other capacity.

Living with orcs can take some getting used-to for non-orcs, particularly the sharing of objects and constantly being directed to perform some task that the non-orc is particularly suited for.  However, if the clan is familiar with the idea that non-orcs have different needs than orcs, and the non-orc can communicate assorted needs, the life can be downright comfortable, though some amount of scorn may occur on the basis of needing so much relative to the contributions of the non-orc.  This is only sometimes balanced by the inability of other orcs to do the necessary task.

Orcs appreciate when non-orcs are able to find important tasks, and if the non-orc is trusted, are often more than willing to take the non-orc’s word that a task is useful – orcs may never urge a non-orc to write a history of the clan, but if the non-orc thinks it’s a good idea… well, the non-orc is clever in ways that orcs are not.  And, of course, the utility or lack of utility will become apparent in time.

This also leads to more kidnapping, as often non-orcs plead an inability to do certain tasks, but do know who to have kidnapped who can do a certain task.

Orcish tribes can be surprisingly diverse – the main feature of the tribe being orcish is that the orcs’ view of the good of the tribe gets the last say on who is doing what.

On the other end of things, orcs are occasionally kicked out of their tribe, sometimes get separated and lost, or otherwise wind up outside of an orcish-dominated tribe.  They will, then, try to find some other group to join, regardless of the race – belonging is a strong psychological urge for orcs.

This often leads to some amount of culture shock, and also the potential for discrimination or abuse.  Some societies are welcoming of orcs, as orcs are known to be enthusiastic manual workers.  This works well, as orcs feel valuable and important to the group via their special physical abilities, while less-manually inclined folks can focus on other tasks.  This can vary from respectful to downright exploitative.

Other societies, often those suffering from orcish raids, view the newcomer orc as representative of their race, not understanding that the raids of orc tribes are a question of group-versus-group behavior, rather than orc-versus-civilization behavior.  This can lead to all manner of lousy behavior towards the orc in question, while the orc tries to contribute to their new group, and not be forced on its own again.

Either way, orcs have trouble integrating due to their tendency to steal, their tendency to leave a job for some task they think is more important, and their tendency to assault those they see doing antisocial behavior.

Gnomes:
Gnomes were conceived of as a sort of the counter-point to orcs, and are very much a mirror in the opposite direction.

Gnome physiology:

Gnomes are the smallest of the races (sometimes call halflings by humans, on account of being half the size of a human), and their strength is proportionate.  They are, however, quick and well-coordinated, and very dexterous with their hands.  Gnomes share skin tones, eye colors, and hair colors with humans. Gnomes have less potential at magic than humans, but tend to realize more of their potential.

Gnome psychology and culture:
Gnomes are noted for being horribly clever and utterly self-serving.  Even when they appear to be acting for the good of others, they are doing so because they expect it will also help them in the end.

This does not mean they are out to screw others over, as cooperation often leads to a better long-term outcomes.

Unfortunately, this does mean that they will do whatever they know they can get away with, and do have a tendency to betray the trust of others at the most inopportune moments – i.e., when there is nothing the other party can do about the betrayal.

Gnome-dominated culture tends to be very individualistic, with lots of deal-making between various group members, but often very little in terms of positions of power – the lack of trust makes leadership tricky.  Fortunately, gnomes are very clever, and the individual deal-making paired with the long view makes sure that things get done.

Gnomes and the other Races:

Gnomes are also aware that they could have an even better life when living in a non-gnomish settlement, and for this reason gnomes are the second-most-common members of almost any city.

With humans, their expertise at technology and cleverness make them valuable, but there is a stigma of betrayal.  Often this is not a problem, as a gnome can explain the virtues of maintaining a good reputation… however, often humans are unwilling to trust someone who is more clever than themselves, having been burned before.

When an individual gnome can’t prove that while other gnomes are duplicitous schemers, the individual gnome won’t screw over the humans due to maintaining a reputation… this causes a loss of incentive to be something other than a duplicitous schemer.  Thus gnomish ghettos can often be sources of crime – either rightfully, as gnomes are clever enough to do crime well, or wrongfully, as humans are quick to blame any crime they can’t solve on the superior intellect of criminal gnomes.  Of course, the gnome might argue, “What gnome criminal would allow the crime scene to look such a way that investigators wound up at his or her doorstep?  If were doing this crime, I would leave clues implicating someone else.  This crime is no doubt someone else covering their tracks by implicating me.”

Human law enforcement does not always get along well with gnomes.

Gnomes tend to see orcs more as ‘things’ than as fellow sentients, due to the orcs being predictable and duty-driven, rather than the orcs expressing their own volition, self-interest, agency, or free will.  This works well for gnomes in orcish clans, as once they catch on they tend to climb to a comfortable position in society.  Alas, this does not always work out when there are multiple gnomes in the same clan, as orcs wind up as pawns for power-plays between various gnomes.  Gnomes find it troublesome, though, that orcs have a tendency to go off-script.  This this can be counter-acted in a variety of ways, for a sufficiently clever gnome…

Gnomes are fairly welcoming of elves, and are happy to mine the memories of elves for historical knowledge, analyze the information relative to what other elves have said, and draw useful conclusions.  Unlike humans, gnomes don’t get depressed by elves, and so, like everyone else, an elf is a valuable tool.

In a certain sense, gnomes can always be trusted, so long as one manipulates the situation such that the gnome being trustworthy stays in the gnome’s best interest.

Elves:
Elves and dwarves are outside of the main triad of races, and they are both relics of a more glorious age.  Or, at least, the elves are, since the dwarves are all dead.

Elvish physiology:

Most notably, elves are an ageless species (as are dwarves, according to legend).  However, they are not physically robust, and are not energetic.  This is due to them being part magical in nature, and no longer having the ambient magic that their bodies expect.  Elves average barely shorter than humans, but are incredibly slight of frame, with a starved looking appearance.  Elves have all manner of skin color, eye color, and hair color, due to earlier magical manipulations.  Elves are the best at using magic, bar none, but are still severely limited by the current circumstances.

Elvish psychology and culture:
Elves are a broken people.  Once, long ago, their magical kingdoms ruled the entire surface, having survived their conflict with the dwarves.  In the old days, elves looked down on the mortal races as not really mattering, as they lived for only a few decades before withering away – not really a meaningful experience.  The manipulation of ambient magic allowed elves to raise their great living cities of wood and crystal, allowed them to fly through the air and communicate throughout the world.  It is whispered that elves even walked through portals to other worlds entirely.

But then the sun disappeared.  And with the sun disappearing, life on the surface died.  And without life, there was nothing to supply ambient magic.  The world went from a place suffused with magic to a place barren and dry of magic.

Not that the disappearance of the sun concerned the elves immediately.  They thought they could fix it with their magic.  Maybe even raise a more pliable source of light to replace it.  While the human cities fled the snow underground, the elves raised great lights throughout the world.

But the lights all flickered out.

The elves were the last to flee into the old dwarven caverns, and by the time they did so, they were nearly bereft of magic and facing cultures that had never relied so heavily on the mana arts.  Elves quickly went from being the most populous and powerful culture in the world to being the least populous and poorest culture in the world.

Worse, the lack of magic not only interfered with their bodies, rendering them frail, but also interfered with their minds – elves with centuries, even millennias of experience found themselves unable to sort through their memories efficiently, instead remembering things based on mere association.  Many went insane to varying degrees, either unable to cope altogether, or unable to distinguish reality from the aeons of memories dredged up by every sight or smell or taste.

Young elves enjoy the benefits of being unable to forget, but even on a timescale of decades, this turns into a curse, as every new experience brings back a flurry of past experiences.

This leads many elves to live lives away from the constant sensory overload of larger cities, living in traveling caravans, ideally experiencing new things, rather than repeated memory-laden ones.  Unfortunately, this also separates them from the small amount of ambient magic that exists from the creatures living in the cities.  Elves can sort their memories better while in cities, and often they will leave the caravan when that is not working for them, and try to live in cities, where they trade memories and stories for coin, before the wash of new experiences fills them up to a level they can no longer sort, even with the local ambient magic.

It’s not always easy, being an elf in this day and age, and a lot of elves get fairly mopey, and the older ones often live mostly in their memories of better times.

Elves and other races:
Elves are exploited by halflings, and sometimes orcs find use for their abilities at altering magic, but often exile elves who can’t consistently hold it together enough to make a positive impact on the tribe.

Dwarves:
The last major race.  They are all dead, and what actually happened to them is a big mystery in the story.  This is the non-spoiler version.

Dwarf physiology:

According to the elves, they are shorter than elves and much stockier, with a squat, wide frame.  They are physiologically ageless, and supposedly very smart.  Unlike most species, they have no ability for magic whatsoever, not even producing mana.  Some elves claim this as proof that they are not really alive.  This also renders them immune to purely magical attacks, though using magic to alter the environment (shooting a fireball, etc.) worked fine while the elves were at war with them.

Dwarven psychology and culture:
Not much is known about dwarves, as they exiled themselves underground a millennia ago to end a globally catastrophic war with the elves.

Elvish knowledge from the surface speaks of advanced non-magical technology – advanced flying carts engaging elvish dragon-riders, golems and summoned elementals being matched by massive electrical suits of armor or armored carts that spat death, and, towards the end of the war, devices that created explosions of unmatched power that poisoned the very land.

The relics found from beneath the surface provide evidence that dwarven creativity and technological progression never ended, with machines that turn water into fresh air and power, devices that turn waste into ingots of pure metal and charcoal, along with vials of strange gas, and other devices that, when linked with a suitable power source, turns the right arrangement of ingots and vials into a new dwarven device.

What the dwarves did not leave was any kind of writing, or instructions on how these wonderful machines were to be used.  The dwarves were also notably devoid of any form of art - at odds with elven memories of dwarves on the surface.

Most perplexingly, despite all this achievement, no living dwarves have been seen, and the caverns are littered with the corpses of dwarves, all having met some manner of violent end.

Other race:
Something else moves in the deepest, hottest tunnels.  Elves swear that new tunnels are being dug, that abandoned campsites have been slightly disturbed.  Sometimes the other races also think they can hear something through the stone.  But saying more would be a spoiler.

Fantasy Races Reimagined - Background

The next three posts are going to be various sets of fantasy races from various settings of mine, but before going into that, I want to talk about fantasy races.

Beware, this is rather rambling, and probably not at all necessary.  Also probably not why you are reading this blog, dear reader, so I can understand if you skip past to go look at more delicious Content.

But, well, if you want to understand where I am coming from in the other Fantasy Races Reimagined posts, you have that option:

(Be aware I am hardly a scholar on this subject - if you know better, let me know.)

Tolkien left a legacy upon the fantasy genre, and part of that legacy involves a setting with multiple sentient races.

For Tolkien, I think that races were races, in the late 19th / early 20th century understanding of the idea.  Elves and humans and hobbits and orcs were all different, with dwarves being a bit more different.  There were physical and mental differences between them, but, well, that was understood to be true between the IRL races.

If you want to delve deeper, you'll find a hierarchy among the races of elves between those lousy elves who never followed the call of the gods (dark elves); those who did, but faltered at some point (Forest Elves); and the best elves, those who went to live with the gods in heaven (Noldor).  There are definite differences between them, and I can't help but wonder to what extent this was an analogy to the races of mankind, and who was closest to the Christian god.  Does this make Galadriel a Jew?

Since then, racist ideas have fallen out of favor, and we start to see fantasy settings still retaining the physical/mental diversity between races, but with those races starting to be portrayed more like different species, probably helped along by the portrayal of alien species in science fiction.

We still call them races, probably because "species" feels too anachronistic, and partly out of deference to Tolkien.  Unfortunate, in my opinion, but if I had the power to change norms, the world would be a very different place.  (Superhero idea: Norm-man.  Thinly veiled secret identity name: Norman.)


The Tolkien lineage continued in RPGs, particularly the rather influential Dungeons and Dragons game.  Why does DnD have Elves, Half-Elves, Humans, Halflings, Orcs, Dwarves?  Probably the Tolkien heritage.  The DnD Elves aren't as Humans-But-Better as the elves in Middle Earth, and they pull slightness of frame from non-Tolkien myth, but it's important to remember that in most myth, elves and goblins are just about the same thing, just multiple names.

(You can generally trace Tolkien lineage by looking at the elves.  If the elves aren't inscrutable alien fey, playing with humans for their own amusement, you're probably seeing Tolkienesque elves.  [If you are familiar with the Exalted setting, they are a rich and unique setting largely divorced of Tolkien's legacy.] )


Tolkien's legacy continues onwards, and has become so prevalent that a certain kind of utility has appeared - it is much easier to get "elf but different" into a reader's head than it is to get "totally new species you have never seen" into a reader's head.  This is because human brains work by using "[X] but different" - in fact, we got to elves, halflings, dwarves, orcs, etc. via 'human but different'.

But now that fantasy readers can be expected to be familiar with all these different archetypes, we can do another step of '[X] but different', and that is... really cool.  While in previous times, everything had to be one step away from humans to get that advantage, now we can explore areas two steps away from humans, while still having that advantage.

...Which, I suppose, is a bit frustrating for fans of starfish aliens.


I am a person who likes logic, particularly in-setting logic.  I often find it jarring when things exist a certain way because of outside-of-setting reasons.  To use dwarves as an example:  Dwarves are associated with using axes to fight, and are also noted for being underground.  This troubles me, as axes are swung, and swinging is something you'd rather not do underground.  It would make more sense for them to fight with stabbing swords like roman legionaries (who fought in packed formations), or to fight with spears and pikes (since tunnels limit the ability to get past a spear).

I don't mind outside inspirations as a jumping off point--the minimal 'why' that overcomes a non-existent 'why not'--but once there exists a reason for things to be a certain way, outside inspiration becomes secondary, as everything else can be derived from the rest of the setting, and fit together much better by that method.

And yet... there is often reason to conform--at least to some extent--to people's expectations, and save on words and confusion.


Having multiple fantasy races is interesting to me on the basis of diversity.  There is a lot of diversity among humans, but that is like saying there is plenty of diversity among integer (whole) numbers - sure, there are an infinite amount of integers, but that's still missing an infinite realm of possibility.

This mirrors my interest in fantasy in general - there is a near infinite amount you can do in non-speculative fiction, but again, the amount you can do in speculative fiction is just so much more.

There are plenty of stories where only humans exist.  There are plenty of stories where only humans are relatable, while other intelligences lurk as the other.  But stories where non-humans are characters much as humans hold a particular place in my heart.


I suppose I will add more rambling sections here if I find I need to while writing the other Fantasy Races Reimagined posts.

Alaethoth and the Angels

Here is a setting idea I found in one of my older folders.  It is based off of the idea put forth in A Pit Fiend (For DnD), but instead of being an element within a generic setting, the idea takes center stage in the setting cosmology.  Kinda incomplete, and I'm just copy-pasting my notes, I'm afraid.

Cosmology:

The Master was a great spirit that created this world and all in it as his plaything.  The mortals rebelled, tired of suffering as sentient toys, and called upon other great spirits that, if not stronger than the Master individually, were able to overcome him and shatter him into a thousand pieces.  The humans were wise enough not to simply leave the possibility open for a new master to arise – instead the terms of their calling were that the other spirits could not put more of themselves (sum total between all spirits) onto the world than the Master currently had.  No effect greater than his effect.  All other fighting had to be done extraplanarly.  While this would leave the master and the other spirits—the new gods—on purely even footing in the terrestrial realm, it would be the place of the mortals to tip the balance in the one area they mattered.  This was to be enforced by the greedy gods upon each other: Any god that disobeyed would find itself the target of the others, must as the master had, and all that was his would be divided among the other gods.

Time passed, and the master lay shattered, and his shards sealed away.  Much was forgotten.  The gods tampered with the world through indirect means, playing a game that skirted the rules, trying to draw humans to worship them, and cause them to choose to act in accordance with the will of one god or another.  Religions were created, wars fought against each other, and mortals, with all the freedoms they had managed to gain, chose to shackle themselves to the ideologies of gods through their own free will.

Mythology grew about the Master and his shards.  The shards were called demons, while the servants the gods send onto the world in response to a freed demon were called angels.  As gods overstepped the rules, they were torn apart and soon there was a division between the original greater demons (from the Master) and the new lesser demons (from the later gods).

The terms never changed, and the need for humans to help angels overcome the demons stayed true.  Indeed, it became true more than ever, as the angels were often more interested in furthering the agenda of their patron spirit than actually working together to defeat the demon whose presence allowed and justified their continued existence.  And yet, the world stayed demon free more often than not.  Mortal heroes rose and cast down demons.

Into this mix come our characters:

The Immortals

Alaethoth – A greater demon who chooses to rule by kindness.

Umashtim – An angel sent in response to Alaethoth, who seeks to defeat Alaethoth quickly to prevent the batch of angels responding to Alaethoth from upsetting the favorable status quo.

Embeshbil – An angel sent in response to Alaethoth, who seeks to delay Umashtim, allowing him and others time to topple Umashtim’s god’s religion. But not obviously, or that would be unpopular.

Iawashival – Allegedly wants to stop Alaethoth, pretends to help Gehem and Vonshtat.  Is actually allied with Embeshbil’s coalition.  Actually is a traitor to his masters, and seeks out Alaethoth to change his nature so he can be free.

The Mortals

Gehem – A mortal thief, caught and sentenced to jail.

Vonshtat – A mortal hero, disciple of Umashtim’s god, who needs a sneaky person to help him infiltrate Alaethoth’s realm.

Clurim – A mortal sorcerer and self-avowed atheist, driven insane by his usage of magic.

There are layers of understanding for the readers:

Layer 1: Gehem is recruited by Vonshtat and sent on a mission for his ‘true’ god to scout out an Original Demon.

Layer 2: The angels may not be as unified as one might think.

Layer 3: Alaethoth does not actually seem that evil, even if his ambitions are to rule the world.

Layer 4: Clurim tells the nature of the world.

Layer 5: Iawashival is free, becomes Alaethoth’s Lieutenant.  Tells the history of the world.

In particular, Alaethoth understands that the downfall of the Master was that he was cruel when playing with mortals, even when he could have enjoyed interacting with them in a much less harmful manner.  With that in mind, Alaethoth sees the current gameplay between the gods—and the resulting misery—as a means to unite the mortal world against the spirits.  Ideally, he would like to rule the world as a benevolent master while finding and absorbing the other greater and lesser demons, until he becomes the new master.  The gods, if they understood that he may threaten the game they have going on, could unite against him, so instead he pretends to be possessed of enlightened self-interest and motivated by terrestrial gain—just another factor in the game—while he pursues his larger agenda.  Some day he seeks to have allies among the current gods that agree with his vision and are willing to overthrow the system, but that is far in the future of the current situation.

Past, Future, and Present: Order and Chaos

The story begins in a future insane asylum (dystopic) with the main character: A man from the early 21st century, recovered from stasis, but then considered maladjusted.  He thinks that it is, instead, the world that is crazy.  From his perspective (and ours) the future world runs along orderly lines without free will or choice.  A deterministic dance of machines, some of which happen to be fleshy.

He is broken out of the asylum by a fringe radical group of terrorists, who need his cultural and linguistic knowledge of the past.  To his annoyance they also are just as regimented and logical as the rest of society, just their goal is different - to destroy the way things are.  They simply think in the same terms as everyone else in the future.

What they have uncovered are physical records that they have tentatively translated as being related to some great force of destruction.  They know the records were written during the early 21st century (now forgotten), the same time that the man in question was put into stasis.

The story then splits between the main character in the dystopian future and the writer of the records, who is in the not-to-distant future.

The writer was an amateur historian who was exploring the cave systems near some ruins of [ancient civilization of choice], and discovered records of an ancient and desperate battle between the forces of humanity and an ancient spiritual entity that wished, ostensibly, to destroy the world.  As he delved deeper, he realized that the entity would have destroyed all of time and space, it was just that the writers did not know how to describe that possibility.  The ancient battle was won by the forces of order, and the entity imprisoned by ancient magic for a thousand thousand days.  Unfortunately some quick math revealed that the entity was on the verge of freeing itself, and laying waste to reality.

Hijinks ensued, and the historian was eventually able to combine ancient spells with the modern technological  know-how of the governments in question.  The historian did not trust the government services, believing himself to be a loose end.  Believing that the government's plan to hide the entity with secrecy was misguided, he wrote the documents for future generations and hid them away.

In the present day, the main character does let the terrorists know that the entity exists and where it was sealed before reading the documents more thoroughly and understanding that the entity won't just topple a civilization, it will destroy all space and time.  Having read that part, he is unsure of how to proceed - will he be able to explain to the terrorists that they might be unleashing something overly powerful?  Would they care or believe him?

The main character reaches the tomb with the terrorists, and, with the help of the historian's notes and spells, is able to penetrate the tomb and decipher much of the original markings.  The the main character finds that the ancient writings say that the entity was sealed, not destroyed, because they wanted the end of the world to be some time later.  As the terrorists prepare to destroy the isotope energy sources that now power the sealing spell, they come under attack by security drones from the main society.  The drones, to the terrorists' surprise, do not use their highly lethal weaponry, but instead try to disarm and subdue the terrorists with improvised non-lethal means.

The main character realizes that the entity is for the death and rebirth of the world, and that by freeing it, reality will be reset and history can unfold anew.  Without it the static world that has persisted for the last million years will continue, and there may not be another combination of events that frees it.

But by then it is too late.  The drones have subdued the terrorists, and advance towards him.  Realizing that he will return to the asylum if he his captured, the main character uses the weapon he was given to shoot himself through the head.  The last thing he sees are the drones racing to stop him, and he wonders why they are doing that.

Simulations in Space

Story starts out in a fairly normal low-magic fantasy setting.  A good deal of fantasy races.  There are plagues killing human people, the weather and many other natural phenomena are going a bit crazy, fertility is down, and there is a powerful sorcerer-king that everyone is worried about.

As the story goes on, there are a number of factions, or cults.

One faction ostensibly wants to destroy the world.
Another wants to stop them, and keep the status quo.

This gets more complicated, as the reason for the plagues, wacky weather, and worse is because something's terribly wrong with this world, and the world-destroying faction wants to destroy the world so that a new one can appear, one less terrible for everyone to live on.

The major stopping factor is the sorcerer-king, who allegedly stopped/jammed the cycle of renewal and reincarnation, because he liked this world and what he had achieved in it.

In a quest to achieve the same power as the sorcerer-king, the protagonists take part in what is, to them, a spiritual journey sort of thing.  They wake up in tunnels of metal, where they have been kept in stasis/dreaming, as per the matrix.  Forging out and around, they come to realise/are told that they are in a giant, run-down starship, and that the fantasy-world is the stasis-dream.

The computer AI is kinda broken, and the ship has been continuing to falter.  Eventually they uncover that the sorcerer-king was one of a group who were pulled from the simulation to make some repairs that the AI could not.  However, the sorcerer-king instead modified the simulation to give himself powers, and when the AI protested, he damaged it badly until it gave up.

The AI has since been fairly reluctant to pull humans out of the simulation, but the method it provided to the sorcerer-king and his companions was left open.

Darker truths are also found: the plagues aren't something natural, but rather the cover-story for people dying in their stasis pods due to the continual degradation of the ship.  Also, more subtly, everyone in a stasis pod is human.

Unfortunately, the sorcerer-king left in place several blocks and controls that prevent the protagonists from reaching the places necessary to repair the damage.  Instead, now armed with what powers the AI was able to provide them, they are plugged back into the simulation, and must convince (through force if necessary) the sorcerer-king to relinquish his hold before everything goes wrong permanently.

Upon their return, they are met by one of the people who is trying to stop the remaking of the world.  He reveals that the sorcerer-king programmed an admin interface into the world, in addition the the sorcerer-king's current direct powers.  His highest priests have limited access and knowledge of it - the person speaking was formerly one of those priests, before a major disillusionment.

However, one thing the former priest found was that all the dreamers are human, in human bodies - all the other races are simply simulations.  This explains the sorcerer-king's fairly xenophobic (well, not phobic - he simply does not care about the lives of simulations) policies.  Worse, if the world is renewed, all of the other races will be erased, and replaced with the denizens of the next world - unlike humans, who are simply re-incarnated into their new roles.

The other pressing issue is what happens to people who die in the simulation.  Normally they are held unconscious for a while, until the next world-generation.  However, it's been far too long since the last world-change, and this is beginning to become a problem.

The former priest wants there to be some method of re-incarnating humans directly back into this world, rather than this (in his eyes) horribly destructive cycle.  He is, perhaps, less aware of the larger problems facing the ship, or the source of the plagues - this is because his disillusionment came before the ship's degradation became a lethal issue.

Talking with the other side, they note that preventing the periodic remaking of the world prevents the creation of new races, prevents the realization of potential.  The fantasy races in this simulation live long at the expense of every race that does not get to live at all.  How is it that those currently living are more important than those who have not had a chance to live yet?

The sorcerer-king is, perhaps, a bit mad with power, always wanting to try something new, somewhat dangerously bored with the cheats he has put into the game.  He has power over almost everything, save the choices and will of humans.  Thus, his one last game is to try to win dominion and control over humans.

He is aware of the problems in the ship, but he figures he will go and fix that all right again once he's done conquering the world.  He doesn't want to lose his powers now, or have the world remade and his work undone.  He does note that to fix some of the problems would require him to reboot the simulation, and while he doesn't care about the simulations, it would undo everything.  He's saving the new game for later, though.

The protagonists, even with their powers, are imprisoned, but the sorcerer-king comes under attack by a great coalition of many races.  The former priest from earlier was somewhat worried that the PCs would actually convince the sorcerer-king to reboot the world, and launched on a bid to kill the sorcerer-king, thus keeping him out of circulation until the remaking of the world... which would maybe be never, but maybe they would find a way to re-incarnate him with the fully-realized power of the admin interface... without his powers.

The protagonists are a murkier case, however, because they have the out-of-game knowledge necessary to use the admin interface fully, and unlike the sorcerer-king, some of them do care about the non-human races.  The sorcerer-king is out-foxed, tricked into using his powers to destroy great swathes of the coalition while an elite group steals into his temple to access the admin-interface, and depower the sorcerer-king.  This also frees the protagonists, and they make their way over to the admin-interface.

This leads to an argument between various factions about what should be done now, while the protagonists undo the locks preventing real-world access to the damaged sectors.  This done, they are overwhelmed by the anti-remaking faction, but the computer directly unplugs them from the simulation, waking them up.

It turns out that the anti-remaking faction sent other people the same way that you got out of the simulation, and while they have been stymied by the doors, now those doors are open.

The AI also notes that the sorcerer-king left some fall-back protocol that causes him to be awakened in the real world upon his death in the simulation, and he's in control of a number of robots to help him retake the real-world admin controls.

The protagonists race through the ship, as the ship tries to stop the sorcerer and his robots from reaching the admin room.

Upon reaching the room, they are set upon by the world-saving loyalists, who still don't trust that the protagonists won't save things the easy way, sentencing millions of non-humans to oblivion.  However, with the sorcerer-king cutting his way through door after door, their time is fairly limited.

Instead, they let the protagonists onto the controls to remove control of the robots from the sorcerer.  Once on, the computer informs them that the robots are under first-law restrictions, and the only thing that needs to be worried about is the sorcerer-king, who has armed himself with certain rather lethal tools.

The AI doesn't want the loyalists to know this, though, as they would retake the controls, and probably make things worse.

The reboot is truly needed for for the AI to be restored, and without the AI being restored, life-support will continue to fail.

Also, without the AI being restored, the sorcerer-king will probably shoot his way through all of the loyalists, kill the protagonists, and return things to they way they were.

With heavy hearts, the protagonists reboot the system.  The fully restored AI is not under any first-law restrictions, and immediately kills the sorcerer-king and disables the loyalists.

The AI tells the protagonists that this time it is ready, and will vent toxic gas into their chamber if they do anything other than repair the physical damage.

As the protagonists repair the ship, they foist various new ideas onto the AI,  trying to make sure that instead of the constantly changing cycles, the new simulations continue to live.  The AI argues back about various problems, and poses a number of philosophical questions, such as: what is the meaning of continuity in life?  After all, humans are re-brainwashed into their new roles in the new simulation.  If simply took the simulations from the old sim and put them into the new sim, like humans, what really happens when their memories are scrubbed and replaced?  What's the difference between storing sims between worlds and just having a number of personality archetypes stored between worlds?
If the world were run without humans in sped-up time, until such a date that all the sims have died of natural causes, would that be better? Worse?

The protagonists gradually realize that the ship has had an awful lot of time for philosophy, and, as an artificial intelligence itself, is somewhat concerned with philosophical questions pertaining to artifical inteligences.

They also discover that the ship is on a long journey to a world not unlike those in the simulations, and that, eventually, a world reboot is necessary so that the last generation of ship-dwellers is used to a setting not unlike the world they will be landing on - while knowledge can be uploaded, personality cannot, and the AI is mandated to use the simulations to get the personalities of the last generation into something that will start a colonial civilization decently.  The AI is, however, very worried about what will happen once humans are out of its protective simulation.

Eventually, they convince the AI to save the data from each world right before it is rebooted into a new one.  Even though the data will be static, and thus not really alive, it will have the potential to live again, via computers on the surface, should the humans decide to care.  The ship, with its fretting, decides that it will let any asylum seekers onto itself, to live in assorted civilizations, and let the sims in each civ to live once more in connection with the rest of reality.  And, you know, give the ship something to do.