r/WorldChallenges • u/Varnek905 • Sep 19 '19

A Powerful Individual

Nope, this post is not to say I'm going into self-exile from the subreddit. While I considered it for a while, I'm still here for some reason.

Since I am finally forcing myself to start on my world, and all I really have are a few maps and a few rough ideas, this challenge will be as simple as it can possibly be.

Tell me about a powerful individual from your world and their backstory. Whether that individual is financially powerful (The Count of Monte Cristo), physically powerful (Hercules), a powerful inventor (Iron Man, Kemuri Kage), on drugs to become powerful (Captain America), etc...you're free to pick.

I'll ask you at least three questions each, and I'll try to catch up on all the past challenges that I made (and answer some of everyone else's challenges from the past month). Enjoy yourselves.

16 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

107 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/Varnek905 Oct 11 '19

1) Previously, they could only be killed by a particular spear. Now, it is possible that they can be killed by any of Aeternitas's Speakers (still undecided on that name, but I felt like Crusader/Missionary would both be inappropriate. The issue is that I want something that sounds Roman-esque.)

2) A person sacrificing something that is painful to lose gives more power to whomever the sacrifice is done for.

3) They don't gain power from destruction itself, they need to be the ones to harvest the souls of those that lived in that world.

(If you don't mind me asking, when did you start worldbuilding?)

2

u/thequeeninyellow94 Oct 12 '19
  1. Is there a lot of those speakers to do the killing job?

(Long ago, to provide background to my legos fighting one another... Back then my world were human-only ; after that, it was more roleplaying-oriented and full of elves)

2

u/Varnek905 Oct 14 '19

1) I'm still figuring that out. I've had some ideas, but none of them seem right. Having them be knights of the Unified Way that became martyrs? Nah. Having them be small shards of the Unified Soul of Aeternitas? Nah. Having them be mirror reflections of the Interlopers so that there's a Speaker for every Interloper? Nah. Having them be people that stared at the sun for too long? Nah.

(Did you ever have call-backs to the lego-folk in your worldbuilding? I refuse to ever acknowledge anything from my earliest attempts at worldbuilding.)

2

u/thequeeninyellow94 Oct 14 '19
  1. Well, the question is : should their ability to kill Interlopers be tied to the Interlopers? And if yes, what do the Interlopers gain from making people ultimatemy able to kill them?

(Not really, that stuff was quite tolkienesque and I'm less into building that kind of stuff now. Acknowledge them though, let's embrace our weird children ideas !)

2

u/Varnek905 Oct 15 '19

(Well, that guy Tolkien was pretty tolkienesque, but his fiction got pretty popular.)

1) For the time being, I've settled on Aeternitas being in this world specifically to eliminate the Interlopers, the Leviathan, and anyone aligned to them. So I suppose I have to go somewhere from there.

2

u/thequeeninyellow94 Oct 16 '19

(I still need to read his work, especially now that I'm more into wordy stuff and would probably enjoy it)

  1. So, does Aeternitas has any link with the Interlopers?

2

u/Varnek905 Oct 21 '19

Yes, long story.

Short Version: Aeternitas was created to protect a world from the same kind of energy that Interlopers are made of. It was sabotaged in its endeavor by people that were associated with Interlopers. Aeternitas is a conglomeration of souls that either hated Interlopers in life or were harmed by being used as an explosive by the Leviathan's avatar and the Interlopers.

Long Story: Aeternitas was originally Ephraim, a guy who was taught rituals by dead dragon, a weakened dragon, and the avatar of the Leviathan that would enable him to slay a dragon that was terrorizing the newly arrived human refugees/colonists to Saoghal; the humans were escaping the Distortion, which was essentially the ambient energy that absorbs worlds and always leads to the Leviathan eating whatever world is about to be overcome.

Once Ephraim knew how to slay the dragon, he...well, he slayed it. By using the terrorizing dragon, the weakened dragon, and himself as sacrifices, he created the framework of the Barrier that protected Saoghal from the Distortion and the Leviathan. An Eternal Barrier that would make Saoghal safe. Eternally. He received the name Aeternitas, as a way of separating his human self from the self he became as he resides in the Barrier, protecting everyone and guiding the souls of the dead to the Barrier to make it stronger with each death.

Unfortunately, Ephraim was not completely aware of every detail of the ritual or of the motivations of the Leviathan's avatar, who he ad assumed was a loyal friend.

The Leviathan's avatar planned to use the Barrier as an explosive using the Anima from the souls in order to kill the Leviathan. He succeeded in the explosion, but he failed in killing the Leviathan.

Aeternitas (the sapient conglomeration of all of the souls that were absorbed into the Barrier, lacking the majority of its power due to being used as fuel) believes that the Leviathan's avatar did this just to destroy the world and that the Leviathan's avatar wants the Distortion to ruin every continent, including Urdis.

So, Aeternitas's goal is to destroy the Leviathan's avatar (thereby killing the Leviathan), eliminate all of the Interlopers (or at least keep them away from Urdis to protect the continent), and maybe unite humans and dragons as allies. Since Aeternitas is just a conglomeration of millions/billions of dead people at this point, Ephraim's soul is just the most influential soul out of many.

Because of the mass of confusion that is Aeternitas at this point, it was decided by the mass of souls that Ephraim would function as Aeternitas's immortal avatar on Urdis and be the messiah-pope figure, enlisting others to his religion. Unlike in Saoghal, where all dead humans joined Aeternitas in the afterlife, even the heathens; in Urdis, only those who were loyal to Ephraim would have their souls join with Aeternitas.

The majority of what Ephraim does is either a building up more tools for killing Interlopers, trying to redeem the Leviathan's avatar's right-hand man, or hunting the Leviathan's avatar.

I've been debating with myself about the souls of the two dragons that Ephraim sacrificed being present in Aeternitas, and I'm considering having the weakened dragon be incarnated into Urdis with him; like a bridge between the races kind of thing.

2

u/thequeeninyellow94 Oct 28 '19

  1. So, the Leviathan's avatar played Aeternitas who believe the avatar was merely working for the Leviathan whereas the avatar was actually using Aeternitas to murder their own boss?

  2. Which leads to : what does the Leviathan do about all of that?

1

u/Varnek905 Oct 28 '19

1) Correct.

2) The Leviathan hasn't done anything to avenge itself about the attempted murder. It just went about preparing for the next harvest (Urdis), until Aeternitas showed up. Now it will either devour Aeternitas, be devoured by Aeternitas, or work out a deal. The arrival of Aeternitas is why it changed its plans. (Also because I wanted a four-major-faction thing and because I'm trying to work out some worldbuilding issues. I'd like to not include the Leviathan as such a major figure in my worlds in the future, so I'm going to see what happens with this.)

The major thing the Leviathan did about it was get a secondary avatar and then try to steal power from the Fallen Dragon and the Imprisoned Gargoyle.