Tales from the Rocket House
A cinematic style doesn’t necessarily imply a fluffy, or even pleasant setting, and so I’ve decided to try something a little different with this. Essentially, it’s a fantasy Sumeria in which evil spirits cause disease and violating taboo can kill. Instead of being a fantasy setting that operates under our physics until a mage violates them with a spell, it operates under premodern “physics.”
Empire Sword: The Sumeria that Never Was . . .
In a fertile valley, much like the one between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, lies a paper-thin empire, covering, but never truly uniting, seven rival cities, connected by common culture and language, but following differents gods and kings.
The Ensis, or priest-kings, sometimes thought to be divine rule beside the priests and nobles. The might of the city-states mostly safeguards the outlying farms and villages who feed them, allowing early civilization to flourish, with cuneiform writing, commerce, formal religion, art, and even money.
Wildness and danger lie on the outskirts of the valley, the wild spaces between, and the rival empires beyond:
To the south lie the great Blood Jungles, with their hungry gods and mad priests
To the east lie the great steppes, home to horse clans, scheming scholars, and silent assassins (sort of “all the gamer Asia stereotypes, including Mongol hordes, Wuxia monks, and ninja”) They apparently have two “types” of women, the (at least openly) submissive, very feminine, often veiled or hidden women and the warrior-monk virago ninja or Wuxia monk types.
To the west lie the islands filled with strange creatures and stranger folk.
Magic, Religion, and The World
What gamers call magic is, in this system, largely ritual necromancy, blood magic, calling up dark forces (more H.P. Lovecraft than Jack Vance). However, in this setting, magic is a state of mind. This civilization hasn't had a “Greek Miracle,” so virtually everyone will assume that the supernatural and the natural are one and the same. In fact, the supernatural is essentially just their best attempt to explain the world around them, enshrined into doctrine.
Most areas still practice premoral polytheism and seek to appease local and topical gods. There is some Monalatry, but not much. A few areas have moral polytheism. Various small tribes have their own gods or are more animistic. Only a few believe that their home god is worldwide.
Most people feel a strong, mystical connection to their homelands and local gods: the exiles' question of “How can I sing the Lord's song in a strange land?” hangs over every displacement, every exile, every extended voyage.
Religion is fairly bleak at this point, and the best people don't buy into it (either by being monalatristic, by being moral but irreligious, or by doing the bare minimum for religion). At this point, most people don't see religion and morality as completely intertwined, or even intertwined at all. Religion is seen as the way to access the supernatural, and thus the way to influence the natural world – in other words, religion (or particularly, the gods) has its hands in everything, but there is no direct connection that a religious person has to be moral to be genuinely religious. Most still believe that the gods demand sacrifices, and have human appetites and failings. The gods are to be bargained with, paid off, and feared, not necessarily revered or emulated.
Morality as a concept is still in its infancy. The bulk of people operate off of the concept of taboo, which does have power in this setting. Taboo isn't a moral issue, it's more like animistic physics – if you do X, Y can happen. It's important to remember that a person doesn't have to KNOW he's violating taboo for it to 'count,' just as you don't have to know you've eaten poison for it to kill you. If a person is tricked into violating a taboo (such as eating ox flesh), he or she is vulnerable to possession, misfortune, mental illness, natural disasters, bad luck, death, or other hardships. (For an example of this, see the legend of Cuculain).
Major Taboos: Thou shalt not lie with thy close kin Thou shalt not eat the flesh of horses and oxen, for they already give their lives in your service Thou shalt not corrupt the sacred elements of earth, fire and water with the flesh of the dead
There are a very few Monolatrists (they believe in many gods, but believe only one is worth worshiping, typically much like the early Hebrews – they believe their god is not only mobile, and always with them, but holy, demanding righteousness, rather than gifts or supplication. Some even believe their god actually cares about them – it's clear the other gods don't). The monolatrists are not a culture of their own, but an eclectic group who share this one belief. They often wear white to symbolize their loyalty to the One. They are feared by those who draw their political power and wealth from the worship of the many gods – temple officials and priests, idol makers, and many politicians who use the fear of traveling beyond the reach of their local god to keep the people in their place. The worshipers of the One believe that their God is everywhere, and is beyond and above the reach of local gods. They also believe that their God desires righteousness – justice, mercy, and communion with his people – not sacrifices of gold and blood.
The Spirit World
The relationship between the mortal and the supernatural is one of appeasement. Many, if not most, supernatural beings are cruel, dark, and menacing. Here are a few examples:
Gulgulana, the bull of heaven: I interpreted him as a great, skinless minotaur who breathes flame
Abgallu: great sea monsters in the service of Eridu, sent to capture Inanna
Kur: a great dragon with a scaly body and huge wings, a beast of the underworld
Huwawa: son of Hanbi, a great giant with a face of a lion, whose mouth is always bloody and full of some poor creature's intestines (some legends say his face is like the coiled intestines of men and animals, so I'm combining them). “Guardian of the fortress of the intestines,” his gaze can kill, and his roar can shatter the hearts of great warriors (okay, I made the part about his roar up wholecloth).
Mushushu: wingless dragons (“furious serpents”) ridden by the gods.
Anzu, the hawk of heaven: A lion-headed bird of prey who breathes fire and water
Asag, the plague bringer: too hideous for words, his very presence causes plants and animals to sicken and die. In one legend, he has an army or rock creatures born of his mating with the mountains themselves.
Asakku: Asag's servants, these are evil spirits of illness.
Rabisu: vampires that lurk in the shadows, hiding in corners, and lurking by the entrances to houses, hoping to get in. They're vulnerable to salt, especially sea salt (which is NOT as widely available as it is now).
Edimmu: vengeful ghosts who possess those who violate taboos (such as the ones against eating ox flesh), and who haunt or even assault those they would have hated in life (they can only physically hurt a person when they're possessing a body, otherwise they're incorporeal).
Utukku: seven of the worst of the Edimmu: they appear as ghosts of lepers. If they touch you, they can give you leprosy.
Hanbi is a sort of devil-figure, the father of evil, and the father of Pazuzu, the king of the demons of the wind, bringer of storms and drought. Pazuzu is a strange one: people wear Pazuzu amulets to ward off evil spirits, especially those of Dimme/Lamashtu/Lilitu, the child-eater, the (female) demoness of miscarriage, infant death, and infant kidnapper.
Irdu Lili (male), Ardat Lili (female) – equivalent to incubi and succubi
Namtara: the grim reaper, god of death, commander of 60 demons, each representing a different illness. Offerings were made to him to keep from getting sick.
Okay, so where am I going with all of this?
First off, there's a ton of potential in just the Sumerian area: evil cultists, foreign spies, rivals trying to start wars between the city-states.
The player characters would likely be a wandering band of misfits, composed using the party-composition patterns in Shonen Sword back in Column Six, and the campaign could focus on a shadow war against cultists, and perhaps even against the cruelties and fickleness of the gods themselves. The PC’s could spend their time tracking down what’s causing problems (evil spirits, cultists, etc), and either figuring out how to drive out the evil spirits or how to beat the cultists (gott have some fights, right?).
On the other hand, it could be just as entertaining to set them in a position of moderate authority within a city-state and have them have to deal with politics, espionage, and negotiation, as well as supernatural beat-downs. It could be fun.
