Immortals: The Ever Hungering

Necromancy is the foulest magic art that could be practiced on Adel. Adelians are often pragmatic about matters taboo, and often to their credit, but Necromancy is something they cannot countenance the presence of. The Intolerable War turned all of Adel into a battlefield – and in turn, into a graveyard. A Necromancer can raise a wisp or spawn from nearly any plot of dirt he or she could occupy on Adel’s surface, such has been the killing that the world has seen in its history.

But Adelians narrow the Undead into simply products of Necromancy at their own peril. There are a variety of creatures known to Adelians as Immortals, who are not products of a Necromancer’s dabbling. Rather they arise out of their own, as though demons inhabiting once-mortal flesh, sometimes to inflict wrack and ruin, and sometimes merely to sate their nihilistic pleasures. Sometimes they can be reasoned with, or even tolerated; but perhaps more often, they are a threat.

Read the rest of this entry »


Healthcare and Hygiene In Adel

Cleanliness is a virtue for the Adelians, and the idea of being clean and feeling healthy because of it is one that is pervasive throughout their culture. They don’t suffer from backwards ideas about bathing or cleanliness, but they do have peculiar ideas about healthcare, as they are not a modern culture. Nonetheless, for the resources they have, Adelians have managed to combat a lot of disease, and to study avenues of treatment, and develop strange but mostly functional ways of caring for their ill. As with everything, it is a mix of religious superstition and characteristic Adelian pragmatism that led to this.

In this article we will look at disease control and treatment, as well as hygiene in Adel.

Read the rest of this entry »


Guest Post By Me

Over at Low On XP there’s a guest post I wrote about World of Adel.

You can check that out for today, I talk about my motivations when writing World of Adel, and what I think about when I’m working on it. For the moment, I’m reading about 18th century English medicine in a book called “The Age of Agony” by Guy Williams, as well as gathering notes about some old microfilms basedon 17th century medicinal manuals, for a presentation about early medicine I’m working on. This will very likely bleed over into a World of Adel post about Adelian medicine at some point. I’m already thinking as I read “how would this compare to Adelian medicine?” These ideas are really inescapable to me. I wrote the Curious Technologies post after reading about Mutoscopes once.

Really, one thing I did not mention on the guest post, that I probably should have in hindsight, is that absolutely everything can be inspirational, if you can connect it to the culture you’re writing about.


Cults of the Furies

After the Furies punished King Volg for his crimes, they divided into five large Cults that will be detailed below. Like their counterparts, the Seraphim, the Fury factions don’t necessarily always agree or cooperate. Unlike the Seraphim, the Furies have no overarching authority that can make them come together, or even one to make them stay in any given group (other than loyalty, fear or promise of reward from the Succubus, the warband Leader).

Yet Furies will often splinter and join other warbands, forming new factions with women from multiple different original cults. They have more lateral mobility than Seraphim. So unlike Seraphim Convents, Fury cults are more an identifier of where the Fury began rather than an indicator who she owes allegiance to at any given other time. They describe the Fury’s basic ideals and some of her powers and predilections, but Furies from different cults mix and match much more haphazardly than the Seraphim, whose convent is a home, a hierarchy and an authority that will remain with her.

Therefore, though each cult began separately, don’t be afraid to mix women from the different groups if it would create a set of antagonists that would make for a more horrific and dramatic experience in the end.

Read the rest of this entry »


Curious Technologies In Adel

Adelians’ repurposing of Lost World technology has led to a plethora of interesting devices that have since been accepted into their common culture. These devices can be uncommon due to their cost, but most people have at least heard of them, if not seen one in a nearby town or big city (or chipped in together with the whole village to buy one for the community). These devices provide certain utility to the Adelians. Some of them are useful for military and communications, while others serve as entertainment. Some of these items are considered a mark of privilege, wealth and sophistication to use, but there are also places to lease or rent them, or public areas where one can pay to use them, at least in towns and cities. For villagers, owning such pieces of technology could imply a connection to a traveling trader, or that the community as a whole owns it.

Below are some of the minor technological marvels one might find in Adel.

Read the rest of this entry »


Convents of the Seraphim

Sargasso’s Order of the Seraphim, the only Adelian equivalent to knights or paladins, is composed of five convents within which girls are raised and invested with divine powers, trained in the arts and customs of the Seraphim, as well as general religion, language, arithmetic and culture. Each convent is dedicated to a Saint, a woman character (whether they were real is up for debate, but the Seraphim believe they were) of mythological importance. The Saints weren’t spirits and aren’t worshiped, but they are honored and beloved characters by the Seraphim and serve as guides. Each convent has its own style and customs, and its own specialization. Together, they form the de-facto national military for Sargasso.

In this article we’ll look at each of the convents of the Seraphim, as well as what the convent means for a Seraphim both growing up and once firmly established as one of its ranking members.

Read the rest of this entry »


Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 530 other followers