Now, Dungeoncraft Rule #1: Never force yourself to create more than you need, is a great rule. However, I think it specifically says never force yourself to create more than you need, not never create more than you need. My rule, Dungeoncraft Rule #A is this: when you have an idea for the campaign, write it up. Strike while the iron's hot! If an idea comes that is too good to pass up, certainly don't do so just for the sake of the process; good ideas are often hard to come by. The whole point of Dungeoncraft Rule #1 is to keep you from getting burned out by creating detail that ends up being tedious for you as the GM. However, when flashes of inspiration come, they can usually be developed rather quickly, and they aren't tedious. For that matter, they won't necessarily be all that detailed. This is the kind of thing that makes campaign building fun; fleshing out the great ideas you have. Fleshing out the other stuff you need is what makes it tedious. The whole reason I'm doing this "side trek" episode is because I had such an idea and wanted to develop it a little bit while it was still fresh in my head.

Dungeoncraft Rule #B is; don't be afraid to swipe good ideas from another source. You've got to be careful here, though -- if your players recognize the plot or detail and where it comes from, that destroys the illusion that the players have stepped into the game world. A way to do this is to make alterations to the idea; customize it so to speak so it doesn't come across as a straight transfer from whatever source you take it from.

Anyway, this installment will be simple and short in terms of concepts and process, and long in terms of example. I actually have recently read two things that I thought would be great to steal for a fantasy RPG campaign, and taking Dungeoncraft Rule #B, I'll do so and tweak them to make them slightly unrecognizable. In fact, I'll combine the two into something that bears some resemblance to each individually, but not a strong one. Because these ideas have just hit me, I'll apply Dungeoncraft Rule #A to develop them real quick right now while the idea is fresh and exciting. I'll still apply Dungeoncraft Rule #1 though, and not develop more than I need to, or more than is immediately available without making the job tedious. And, the entire shebang applies to Dungeoncraft Rule #2 -- this whole thing is a secret from the characters (and their players!)

So, I had these ideas for an expanded cosmology and mythology for the Dark·Heritage setting. Recently I reread some portions of J.R.R. Tolkien's Morgoth's Ring, a book that also details a lot of the cosmology that's not available anywhere else, including lots about the personalities and motivations of the Valar, the equivalents of the "deities" in Middle-earth. I also recently read Codex: Necrons from the Warhammer 40,000 line of wargame books, which has a lot of detail on the foundation of the various races that inhabit the galaxy, including their connections to the mysterious C'tan and the Old Ones. Warhammer 40k in many ways is a good analogue for my setting; it's got a very dark, grim setting with arcane technology. I've already borrowed a few concepts from Warhammer 40k, in particular the High Lord Imperator of Dark·Heritage resembles the Emperor of Mankind in many ways. Ironically enough, Warhammer 40k is made up of essentially borrowed elements itself; it is very much like Dune combined with Judge Dredd and having a superficial Tolkien overlay. That, of course, just demonstrates Dungeoncraft Rule #B in action!

More Background Cosmology/Mythology for Dark·Heritage

So, exactly what is this background cosmology? Let's hash it out real quick. Long before the advent of mankind, or any other life as we know it on the world, the gods walked the earth in physical forms, and lived in a garden pleasaunce that covered the entire globe. As their helpers, servants, friends and confidants, the gods had lesser spirits summoned from the Void, a spirit realm of soft light that touched the world at all places at once. Many of these spirits came to dwell on earth with the gods, and had to, by necessity, take physical form to do so. These creatures were called angels, guardinals, eladrin or simply celestials. All along, though, the gods knew that there were "children" coming; the mortal races that they were to shephard, nurture and grow, and those who were loyal and faithful to the Immutable Laws were to live in eternal paradise with their gods after their mortal life was over. So the gods set about to create the perfect world for the mortal children to live in. This age is referred to in ancient temple scripts or by raving madmen who have divined the truth as the Age of Divine Splendour.

The gods were not all alike in terms of majesty, potency or temperment, although they did work to a common purpose. One amongst them though, Murchadh, the Son of the Morning as he was called was the most powerful of them all; full of native potency that far outstripped the other gods. He assumed that his wisdom matched his potency, and that he was the natural ruler of the world: the one best suited to order the world for the coming mortal children. Once that might even have been true.

However, his desire to possess and control became an obsession, and he no longer concerned himself with preparing the world for the coming of mortals, but rather to order it to his liking. Likewise, he gradually came to see the works of any of the other gods as flawed and imperfect. He was lacking in wisdom to match his potency, however, and he was unable to create the perfection he demanded. Rather, his time was spent "improving" the designs of others. As his mind became further obsessed, he no longer even cared to improve the designs of the other gods, he merely wanted to corrupt them out of spite.

Knowing that it was almost time for the arrival of the mortals, the other gods colluded and decided that the Murchadh needed to be expelled before irreparable damage was done to the world. In a titannic clash, the gods warred against Murchadh and the lesser spirits he had been able to corrupt and convert to his way of thinking. The might of Murchadh was so great that he held off the other gods for many years, but finally he was overcome and thrust out, although he could not be destroyed. Murchadh fled deep under the ground to nurse his wounds and his pride, and the other gods gave in to the vain hope that he was defeated for good.

It was now time for the spirits of mortals to arrive. The gods gathered again and jointly created bodies for them; nine each of male and female they made. This first race they called the Sidhe; they were beautiful and fey, and reflected the gods themselves, although their spirits came from Outside. They multiplied and began to fill the earth under the tutelage and nurturing eyes of the gods themselves. But Murchadh was not gone, as the other gods hoped. In a daring raid, some of his most trusted servants from amongst the fallen angels stole some of the bodies of the Sidhe and brought them to their master, who corrupted them and enticed spirits to enter into them. This way, he developed his own race of servants, corrupt and utterly enthralled to him. But still the thought of the others, under the tutelage of the other gods instead of subjugated to him, rankled him. So he devised weapons for the first time, and technology well in advance of anything made today, for it was the technology of the gods. He gave this technology to his servants, the Unseelie Sidhe, as they called themselves, and they burst forth from the hidden places of the earth and made war on their brothers. Murchadh himself came from out of hiding, and he and his fallen angels made war again on the gods and their children. The technology Murchadh had given them made his warriors vastly more potent than the largely unarmed (except for hunting equipment) Seelie Sidhe.

In desperation, the gods taught the Seelie Sidhe how to access the Void and bring forth magics from it with which to counter the weapons of the Unseelie Sidhe. The tides and fortunes of the war were more even now, and the advantage drifted from one side to the other many times.

At this time, the gods percieved that a new type of mortal spirit was forming Outside, and they made new bodies of a new type. This later race were called Humans, and they propogated much more quickly than the Sidhe did. Because they came forth in a time of war, they were hardier than the Sidhe; more crude and less able to access the magic of the Void. However, they did not take gladly to the war that they were born to, and many of them turned instead to Murchad himself. Others he kidnapped and corrupted their bodies, mixing them with foul beasts and animals; creating soldiers that were powerful; full of fury and hatred.

And then something that neither side had foreseen sprang upon them, effectively ending the war. The Void had been gradually changing as the suffering and dying of warring generations lived out their harsh lives on the material world. Where once it was full of soft light and gentle sounds, reflecting the reality the gods had created, it now grew dark and bitter. The benign spirits that lived there before became harsh and strange; violent predators on the souls of mortals. The crafting of magic became difficult and dangerous. These new dark spirits, named fiends, demons, devils and many other names besides, came forward from the Void whenever they could and ravaged the armies of either side, uncaring in their bloodlust. The suffering of the world, which was reflected in the Void became so pronounced that it literally gave birth to demonic entities of vast power, enough to rival the gods themselves. Gathering their armies of demons, they attacked the mortal world whenever they could.

The gods turned from their war with Murchadh to battle this new threat, and with the two fronts were defeated and destroyed. Murchadh himself gathered his forces in to himself and enacted a massive undertaking of his godly power, crafting bodies of metal for the Unseelie Sidhe and forcing them to abandon their mortal shells for newer bodies that would last forever. The price was that their consciousnesses were reduced to pale shadows of what they were; their wills entirely subservient to Murchadh himself. He thought, perhaps, that this greater control would give him the edge to win the war, but it greatly weakened his power, and his enemies were able to defeat him, although he still was not destroyed. He entered a coma that was destined to last for millenia, though, the remnants of his now twisted and unliving Unseelie Sidhe guard his buried tomb, and the tombs of his mightiest fallen angels.

War continued to rage across the world, and as the atrocities of the war continued and increased, the power of the demons grew, for it was a direct reflection of conditions on the world itself. Finally, however, the leaders of the Seelie Sidhe took matters into their own hands, bending the will of their subjects to sever their ties with the magic they had used for generations to great effect. Without this, the demons no longer had a way into the world of mortals, and the threat gradually faded as most of them were stranded in the Void.

Humans were never as magically inclined as the Sidhe anyway, but they were capable of some small magic. Even the Sidhe's powerful magic was now dangerous and difficult with the state of the Void, but some humans envied them the ability, and betrayed the Sidhe, summoning demons and unleashing them on the world. Luckily they were not able to summon the very powerful ones, but another war broke out between the corrupted humans and the demons they had summoned and Sidhe and uncorrupted humans for the inheritance of the world in the absense of the gods.

This war was long and bitter. Mortals were killed by the millions, to the point that the population of the entire world was drastically reduced when finally the wars ground to a halt and the demons were defeated, killed or banished. Following this bloody war, it was the Sidhe's turn to betray the humans. The leadership of the Sidhe stole some of the more rudimentary technology used by their dark brethren in the Elder Days when Murchadh warred against the gods and used it to enslave the humans, both to prevent them from unleashing another demon war, and as chattel to serve them. The world by now was ravished beyond repair; a cold, windswept desert with only patches of habitable land or usable water. Between the steam and spring-powered technology of the Unseelie Sidhe and the slave labor of the humans, who by now the Sidhe were breeding into the various Bred races that populate the world today, they were able to maintain a high standard of living, although it still paled next to the days in the pleasaunce of the gods. This condition persisted for thousands of years.

All of this history is completely secret from the PCs and humanity at large. Of course, much of it could be reconstructed by demonologists who could in theory converse with dark and twisted entities that still remember these days. Ancient ruins buried deep beneath the red sands of the most remote and forbidding deserts also feature clues that could be used to piece together this story, if they could be interpreted correctly (and the dark Unliving guardians of the tombs could be avoided or defeated.)

Following these years we move into history that is more familiar based on earlier installments; the High Lord Imperator and several other demonologists made pacts with the demons that allowed them to overthrow the Sidhe and reclaim the planet for humanity, both Bred and Unbred. I won't go into any detail of that now; enough has been written about that for my purposes for now.

Next time, I'll get back to the regularly scheduled Dungeoncraft, following Ray's process again to note the last few locations we want to make sure and include in our homebase, and then talk about techniques for drawing a map that best suits our purposes.