Uncanny Valley Part 5: the Larger World

OMGosh better than the MCU!!1!!1!!

The Gygax 75 Challenge, first presented by Gary Gygax himself and then repackaged by Ray Otus as a free booklet, is not something unknown to the OSR. In a nutshell, for those who may be unfamiliar with it, you are tasked to “create an RPG campaign setting in five weeks”, each week focusing on only one part of the setting.

Uncanny Valley is the result of my group of friends and I taking the challenge on together. It was unanimous that my execution was the most put together, and I actually made it into a small staple-bound book once I finished. Thus I want to see what I can turn it into by taking five more weeks to work on each step again in the same order.

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The final step in this challenge calls us to look at the bigger picture of the world in which the setting will reside. The most obvious starting point is the scope of the world. My vision for Uncanny Valley is rather small-scale; I don't see it as much as a complete world as I do a sub-plane. I like the idea that Uncanny Valley may be dropped into any other setting, to be accessed by whatever mystical means the DM can come up with. I personally would elect to make the entrance fey-like, like a fairy ring or an archway of ancient, mossy tree branches, vines, and other foliage. Entering this way would transport characters into Uncanny Valley, perhaps requiring them to find a way out, or maybe they can come and go from the Valley somehow. Due to these entry methods, the players may find others already in the Valley from their own plane, or others may join after the party has entered. That may be a hook for the characters to seek out the entrance to the setting, that people have not been returning from wherever the entrance is located.

Fairy ring from the world’s greatest online game, Old School RuneScape

Besides the material plane of the "parent" setting that Uncanny Valley is dropped into and the Valley's own fey-like plane, the only other plane that comes included with the setting is the Fold (or, the Fold in the Robe of Nil-Abest), which is an unpredictable plane of intense magical power.

There are also more lands in Uncanny Valley than literally just the Valley part of it. To the north, the Valley opens up into a primeval "super forest". I call it the Harrowing Forest of the Feylings, but it doesn't have a common name among the Starborne and Siltborne would likely just call it "home". South of the Valley is an endless ocean that writhes and thrashes. By endless, I really do mean endless, and there are no islands in it. Although, there could easily be calls for adventure underneath the waters, deep down below. Deep sea mermen would certainly make underwater excursions as terrifying as one in Uncanny Valley proper. East of the Valley is Ha-Gin-Do where giants rule and roam. The ground in these lands is almost always seismically active, whether from actual earthly movements or from the many heavy footfalls of its stewards. The terrain is a haphazard shuffle of earthen planes, hills, and mountains with a dash of "broken lands" thrown about. Westward is the Bleak of Korishtar the Unbidden. I had not put much thought in its contents, but it is essentially a dusty plain with sparse ground cover. Korishtar is the only inhabitant I have in mind, and he is a powerful Starborne sorcerer who tapped into the Fold and changed the Bleak from its previous landscape into its new barren form.

Korishtar also created the Sanctified Star of Nil-Abest, which is a special weapon for fighting Siltborne. The Star may be found in whole or in pieces across Uncanny Valley and its environs. At its creation, the Star was a starknife (stats like a shortsword), but it has been reforged into different weapons over the ages. Its current form is a polearm not dissimilar to a battleaxe. The Sanctified Star of Nil-Abest is a +2, +4 vs Siltborne weapon. Its enchantment is highly resilient, and, as previously mentioned, may be reforged to accommodate different weapon formats without ruining its power. Still, this process should not be easy to do and requires materials and tools of only the highest quality lest any attempt at modifications be rejected, much like the human body sometimes rejects implanted organs. The Star is the only way to permanently destroy Siltborne. Astute characters may deliver the Star to the knocked over stone statue that lies outside on the top of the Unminded Ziggurat. The impact of doing this, I will leave open-ended, but I would certainly keep it from immediately solving all conflict in the Valley; perhaps the statue comes to life and uses the Star as a weapon, or the Star gains additional blessings or effects, or something else that has a not-too-big level of significance.

Just like there are more lands, there are also two deities besides Nil-Abest. These are lesser in power, but they have dominion over most parts of Uncanny Valley. Gash is a force of chaos in the Valley and is responsible for the corrupting power that threatens to overtake all within it. The Siltborne are created as a consequence of Gash' actions. There is also Tarmok who oversees all things natural. Tarmok is neither chaos nor law, but these forces are also left uninterfered with. As an example, Tarmok allows Nil-Abest to bless Starborne crops to flourish, as contesting such result is a needless exercise in "peacocking". Nil-Abest in a similar way allows Gash' continued existence; a conspicuous contest of force would leave the Valley ravaged, and Nil-Abest believes the Starborne are well-suited to carry out any necessary actions. Why these three deities are here may be a question that interests players, if they are made aware of all three's presence that is. Without making too many assumptions about other deities of your setting, the basic explanation is that Nil-Abest and Gash were bound to the plane as punishment for their disruptive squabbles in the greater cosmos, and Tarmok is there as an agent of consistency and balance. In other words, Nil-Abest and Gash are using the Valley as a chess board with Tarmok as the referee.

Nil-Abest's condition for not causing widespread destruction in combating Gash clashes with Korishtar's use of the Fold to create the Bleak out west. This puts the two at odds with each other as well as both being opposed to Gash. Korishtar can't simply be removed, because he has access to immense powers himself, which puts him in a similar situation as Nil-Abest and Gash. Korishtar is not a god, but he may seek means to become one. Although his actions created the Bleak, he too does not wish to make all of Uncanny Valley desolate, but Nil-Abest will only accept his destruction as guarantee to avoid future ruin. Korishtar will thus seek means to eradicate the Siltborne quicker than one-by-one with the Sanctified Star of Nil-Abest but also while preventing further deterioration on his conscience by ravaging the lands.

Tuning the focus back to game elements, there are some changes to the normal assumption of rules and "customs" for Basic Fantasy and similar games that must be clarified. I will simply list them to keep them organized and easy to note somewhere.

• Only Starborne die permanently and leave a corpse

• When a Siltborne dies, the corpse disintegrates and is reclaimed by the earth to be reborn in 1d6 days

• When a Siltborne damages, but does not kill, a Starborne (and is itself not killed), the Starborne and the Siltborne will become the other in 1d6 days. In other words, an orc that hurts a human and leaves them alive will turn into a human, and the human will turn into an orc, but the orc becomes a unique human and vice versa.

• Siltborne that are permanently killed will be reborn as a Starborne the next time a birth occurs

• As mentioned in Part 1, alliances between Siltborne and Starborne are exceedingly rare, occur only under the most dire circumstances, and always end in some form of betrayal if an attempt to keep such an arrangement for too long is made.

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That wraps up the Uncanny Valley. I simultaneously never want to work on it again and want to make it into a little booklet or something. For now, I relate much more to the former, so I'm going to shelve it and see if my thoughts ever change on that. I'm not sure what I'll write about next, but I have a few partial drafts made that I could complete. I think it'll have something to do with NPCs.

Thank you to all who have followed along so far, and let me especially call out The Redcaps podcast real quick. They put me on their recommended reading list, and to be honest, it kinda felt like guests knocking at the door while I was still half-naked, totally came out of nowhere. It's nice knowing there are people who make things I like that also like things I make. Of course, I also appreciate all my subscribers, and I look forward to many more sent letters. Thank you all again, have a good day.