Adventures in Gaming v2

The God-Father of Metal, the Prince of Darkness, the Great Ozz, the Mad-God, the Ozzman – many are his names and epithets. He is at one and the same time the most popular of the Metal Gods, and yet the most inscrutable. Many would say they have a close, personal relationship with the God-Father, but none would say that they truly know him well. No few claim that they have encountered him and drank with him in a tavern, or walked with him for a while upon a road, or sat and listened to him sing for a time – but what, exactly, any ever gained from these encounters is never quite understood.

The Ozzman, as he prefers to be called casually, was among the first of the Ancient Heroes of Lost Earth to be resurrected from their age-long Sleep of the Dead (though some claim the Metal Queen walked the forests and meadows of Kvin Mondöj for a thousand years ere the return of the other Ancient Heroes). He was already counted among the greatest of their numbers, and the boundless energy, mighty mirth, and deep melancholies he exhibited as their leader helped define their nature, both in the distant past and during the Metal Wars. He only reluctantly took up the mantle of the God-Father, and King of the Metal Gods, after the fall of the Dread Dominion, due to the great need for his leadership; he would have preferred to return to the oblivion of Death, for he believed that there, though he did not remember it, he might find the solace of being in the arms of his long-lost and much beloved wife.

He has never taken another as his companion in all his centuries as a god, though many have been more than willing, mortal and otherwise (the members of his covens of Witches are particularly intent upon being the first to break his, to them, silly oath). It is said that his great melancholies, and his great debauches of deific-quantities of drugs and ambrosia, are due to his great loneliness. During these times the Iron Throne of the Metal Gods is held in trust by Dio Storm-Lord or Geezer Metal-Mage, and messages, dreams, and visions delivered by Percy Golden-God, the Voice of the Metal Gods, can be quite garbled. When he is not deep in his divine cups, the God-Father takes his duties quite seriously, marshaling the Metal Gods in their eternal wars against the Church of Satan, the Demon Gods, and the Alien Gods, as well as visiting his followers as needful in dreams and in mysterious mortal guises.

His favored guise is that of a wandering minstrel, dressed in deep black clothing, accented by a cloak of bat wings or raven feathers, with silver necklaces, bracers, and rings, usually decorated with or including his favored symbol, the silver cross. His skin is pale white, his long flowing hair ebon black and reflecting unseen stars; and his pale blue eyes rimmed with black kohl – though these are rarely seen, as he usually wears tinted glasses. Were it not for the silver and the crosses, he might easily be confused for a vampire (a bad thing to do). Upon occasion he appears wearing only pants, his chest, back, and arms covered in tattoos, the natures of which change with each appearance, the meanings of which must be determined by the viewer.

He is usually encountered alone, and speaks in mysterious, roundabout fashion about many things and yet nothing at all, often seemingly a simple madman encountered randomly until he mysteriously disappears… upon which the devotee suddenly understands he has had an encounter with the divine. From time to time he appears in taverns and inns or at fairs, with a back-up group of minstrels. Then he sings for the gathered folk, a song or three pertinent to prophecy or need, before disappearing in a spectacular pyrotechnic flash. Due to ancient concords reached at the end of the Metal Wars he, like most other greater, intermediate, and lesser gods, cannot interfere directly in the mortal world with his full deific power; he can only guide his followers.

When they need a bit more of a push, stalwart defense, or an assist, he appears in the form of a terrible beast. This avatar is of mortal sort, though still of great power, and usually only appears when his followers face overwhelming odds against a demi-god or being of like power. This monstrous form resembles a green-skinned, very muscular, winged balrog with great clawed hands; it has his normal head, though with pale platinum hair, great fang-filled maw, and forked tongue. Its greatest weapon is its breath weapon, a noxious cloud which is a poisonous mix of gaseous drugs that can strike dead even Demons and Aliens normally immune to poisons. In this capacity Ozzman offers his worthiest Cleric, Priest, Anarch, Bard, Champion, Warlock, or Witch to accompany him as his passenger, acting as a destrier for the chosen one to ride into combat.

Ozzymandius is Chaotic Neutral, leaning toward Chaotic Good (not as much as many, but more so than most). As noted, his preferred holy symbol is a silver cross, an ancient symbol potent across time and space. His especial personal enemies (and thus doubly so for his followers) are Satan and his followers in the Church of Satan (he considers them fascist bastards); the Demon Gods (vile, petty poseurs); the Alien Gods (monstrous destroyers with no taste in music or style); and Undead (due to rivalries and treachery leading to the fall of the Empire of Legend). He demands strict neutrality between the Temple of the Metal Gods and the Temple of Judas the Redeemer, a requirement more honored in the breach than in the observance by his clergy.

Clergy must be Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Good. His clergy wear all black, with a white collar; there is no favored weapon. Favored shield devices include crosses, a stylized “O,” and bats or ravens; metal armors are often enameled in black, with bat- or raven-wings and other bat- or raven-inspired devices. His Clerics and Priests may be male or female, and must remain chaste and celibate to remain in the good graces of the Temple (this is not one of his limitations, but one that his hierarchy has chosen, the better to emulate their patron god). His Anarchs, Bards, Champions, Warlocks, and Witches are not as limited in sumptuary fashion or in chastity and celibacy. Those among his clergy who can manage are often multi-classed with the Bard class. His clergy have the ability to cast both light and darkness spells, as well as both spells of healing and causing wounds. Their turning powers are applicable against Undead (turn only); Devils and Demons (turn only); and Alien creatures (not including Gith, turn only).

Millennia ago – no one is quite sure how long ago, though most believe it was some 20,000 years ago – five worlds merged into one in a massive techno-magical apocalypse. Separated originally in time and space, these five worlds – in fact, their entire solar systems – phased together. In the case of the five worlds, they all merged into one, during a terrible, catastrophic event, the Grand Conjunction.

Continents shattered; mountains buckled and fell; oceans were cast up into mountains and wastes; forests burned. Entire ecosystems died, and whole sections of each of the five planets were lost. In the end, where once five separate and distinct planets once existed, a single planet came into being. It is a hodge-podge of the geography, biota, and cultures of the five constituent planets. Most civilizations of the native races collapsed; in most cases, the survivors were reduced to stone-age savagery, if they did not fall all the way back to the state of beasts.

The five worlds were:

Earth: The home of Man, the Earth that was merged with the other five worlds was not one Earth, but many, cobbled together from many eras of its past. From the age of the dinosaurs to the “modern” era, and from the era of the far-future city-continents of super-science to the Last Age of Man, Zothique, and all the eras in between, the Men of Earth and its infinite varieties of cultures, species, and technologies were suddenly found side-by-side, merged with the detritus of four other worlds.

Faerie: The Otherworldly home of the Fairies, Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, Dragons, Goblins, and like creatures of myth and legend, much of the once-hidden and mystical, magical realm of Faerie was revealed and laid open upon the forests and fields of the new world. Though hardly the fancy-free land that fables had once made of it, its Seelie peoples, once happy and bucolic, were reduced to madness and savagery, and the darker Unseelie folk turned dreadful and unpleasant indeed.

Hell: An inside-out world in space-time unlike most others, even Faerie, the home world of Satan and his fallen angels, devils, and demons was the least damaged in the Grand Conjunction, for as prior, it remained on the inside of the world – the Hells, as once envisioned in medieval ideals, were now found at the center of the earth. In between the Hells and the World Above, the Underworld was spawned, a mix of the other four worlds with a great heaping-helping of Hell…

Qualq: An utterly alien world to Men, Faeries, Demons, and Wyld, the best description of Qualq is that it is some bastard child born of the fevered nightmares of H.R. Giger and H.P. Lovecraft. A world of psychic powers and super-science, its denizens included the mind flayers and their abhuman slave race, the Gith. Though segments of Qualq are found upon the World Above, most are found in the Underworld or upon the Sky Islands, where the inimical biota of that realm can survive in isolation (elsewhere, when encountered and if at all possible, it is hunted to extinction). The Gith, however, survived and expanded throughout the World Above, where they eventually became the second-most populous race after the Men of Earth.

Wyld: The world of Wyld was much like Earth and Faerie, though of unbound natural growth and atavistic primitivism. Civilization rarely rose above the stone age, and never above the bronze age. Men of Wyld are much like the Men of Earth, though built of massive skeletal and muscular structure; their culture is that of the eternal barbarian and atavistic savage. Men of Wyld are divided into many varieties, including Bear-Men, Brute-Men, Horned-Men, Wolf-Men, and others. Animals native to Wyld were of such sorts that made the megafauna of Earth seem small by comparison.

The many races and species of the five worlds migrated, mixed, assimilated, fought, allied, and over time, rose again from savage barbarism to civilized heights and decadent depths. In the ages since, many civilizations have risen and fallen. Most of these are lost in the mists of time, especially those prior to the last thousand years. More than two thousand years ago, a combination of alliances brought together the forces of Hell with several Alien factions of Qualq to form the Dread Dominion. No one is certain how long the Dread Dominion lasted, but more than two thousand years ago the enslaved Men and Gith began the Metal Wars, a thousand-year rebellion. During this time they summoned the Heroes of Ancient Earth, and the Metal Gods were born.

The long and terrible Metal Wars ended with the manifestation of the Megadeth, the Apocalypse Beast. Between the final battles of the Metal Wars and the advent of the Megadeth, barely one in a thousand sentient beings survived. Civilization collapsed, most records prior to the era were destroyed, and the world was once again reduced ruined barbarism.

At the opening of the second millennium since the end of the Metal Wars and the advent of the Megadeth, civilization is tenuous at best. Most Men and Gith live in Medieval-like squalor at best; folk of towns and the rare cities usually fare better, some even maintaining a relatively high level of technology, carefully shepherded since the end of the Metal Wars. Still suffering from that era, most realms are small, tribal affairs, city states, or feudal domains the size of a county or shire. Every generation or two, a warlord gets it in his head to build an empire, and war ravages the countryside, already hard-pressed by monsters, mutants, and abhumans on every side. If the ramshackle empire does not fall with the conqueror’s death, it rarely survives that of his son, and never that of his grandson.

Most armies are made of shanghaied peasant mobs, led by the warlord and his band of knights or bully-boys. The mob is armed with farming implements or whatever they can find at hand, while the warlord and his retinue might wield anything from sword and lance suited in plate mail and riding destriers to laser rifle and grenade launcher suited in ancient battle-armor on the back of a grav-wagon. Tipping the balance of every battle are the adventurers and mercenaries, a mixed lot of madmen and would-be warlords themselves, rife with magic, psychic powers, demonic sorcery, and alien technology.

These adventurers wrest their arcane power and super-science artifacts from the ruins of the ancient world that strew the surface wherever one stumbles outside the wood-palisaded village or stone-walled town. Every farmer turns over some ancient ruined thing while sowing his spring seeds; only the mad or power-hungry actually go into the depths of the ruined cities and monster-haunted citadels seeking after working items of power and lost caches of riches and wealth…

Though there are many gods, demigods, and demons in Kvin Mondöj, there are three major religions that are widespread across most of the land – the Church of Satan, the Temple of Judas the Redeemer, and the Temple of the Metal Gods. The Church of Satan (mostly Lawful Evil) is a hierarchical theocratic pseudo-empire dedicated to the Prince of Darkness and his chief lieutenants. They are served by the Knights in Satan’s Service and the Inquisition. The Temple of Judas the Redeemer (mostly Chaotic Good) is dedicated the to most successful of the Metal Gods, Judas the Redeemer, who took up the lead in the struggle against the Church of Satan following the end of the Metal Wars. The third major faith, the Temple of the Metal Gods (mostly Chaotic Neutral), is dedicated to the Ancient Heroes of Earth who returned from Beyond and helped bring an end to the Dread Dominion. Led by Ozzymandius the God-Father, the Temple is dedicated to freedom and individuality and the overthrow of tyranny and order.