The begining
Treasures once filled even the beggar’s satchels, the towers of the least nobles reaching heights of a hundred feet or more, a red light district like none the world had ever seen, dens of vice filled with all sorts of vile and decadent pleasures, temples to gods long forgotten gilded in diamond plucked from trees of platinum, all this and more could be found in the City of Spires in central Shayakand. When the empire fell, and the endless hordes of raiders, pirates and poverty stricken from without the city came to the splendors, the saw for themselves an opportunity. Riches beyond imagining lay before them, and history thousands of years in the making lay at their fingertips. The rarest artifacts fell first. The royal seals, the genie king bottles, the diamond seeds of the platinum trees. In a matter of months the City of Spires was stripped bare, from its most secure vaults to its last drops of crystal clear water, everything disappeared, some ending up on the other side of the planet or on other planes entirely. For two hundred years, the Spires have stood, slowly crumbling beneath the weight of age.

However, one thing remains in the city, and draws power to it still. Unknown to even the most thorough of the looters, and even the last emperor himself, was that the gods always watched over the City of Spires. The instant it fell, an avatar of five gods manifested in the catacombs beneath the royal palace. They waited out the ransacking of the city and then walked its ruined streets, lay in its torn beds and searched the vaults for something to remember the glory by. Four gods found something that only they could connect to, took it into themselves, and departed back to the heavens. The fifth, who was not a full god  merely a demideity, had no ability to create avatars, and so was there in all his power. When he found something to take with him, something from deep within the earth, the very essence of the city and the planet, struck out at him. It was as though the corruption wrought in those months finally found an outlet in this young god. Wracked with divine, horrid agony, this unfortunate entity fell into a state of eternal torpor, a gaping hole in his chest that oozed strange, indescribable liquid.

For two hundred years this god, caught between life and death, called the mad, cruel and sick to the City of Spires. Only the most depraved and twisted can hear the call, and so some of the first to come were rakshasas, aboleths and powerful demons, devils and aberrations without name. With the god’s body entombed behind walls of enchanted, indestructible adamantine doors, the new denizens of the City of Spires have found their own ways to harness the powers of the corruption of the land, city and god. Their efforts drew many, lesser evils to the ruins, and now a ecosystem exists, hidden from the outside world by the machinations of those in control. Until one of the denizens finds a way to the god, none plan to make a move. Of course,  it’s just a matter of when.

Chattel District

The largest and dirtiest district of the City, made up of what was once the market, residential and beggar districts, the area is home to the various lesser aberrations, demons and devils that swear fealty, are slave to, or are bound to, the powerful leaders of the four factions. From chokers and assassin vines, bearded devils and dretches, lemures and quasits, imps and doppelgangers, the inhabitants live in squalor, the streets and buildings covered in two inch thick slime from the years of waste and torture and murder. The actual living quarters of the city vary in look and furnishing, catering to the various temperaments and desires of those residing in them.

For the devils, almost all of the various houses, shacks and lean-tos have their walls covered in paper, shackles and various implements of torture.  Of the aboleths, their servitors in the pit of the Chattel District do not walk its streets or crawl beneath them. Instead, their servants are, in fact, their larvae, maturing slowly on the waste, blood and entrails of outsiders, other aberrations and the lingering despair of the lost people of the city.

The demons, on the other hand, have no real reason to make anything of their homes, and so fill them with whatever they wish.  Among the demons and unknown to them is the shadow demon called Xirix. A being of extreme conflictions; his body is made of pure darkness but, contains a single mote of the first star to light the sky above Shayakand, Xirix serves the will of both the Abyss and Heaven at the same time. Thoroughly insane, Xirix currently works to subtly and constantly shift the balance of power from one faction to another, keeping the entire city in a state of constant chaos, but safeguarding the god’s corpse from desecration and exploitation. The only beings who know of its existence are the aboleth masters, but even with their supreme intellect, they can neither predict nor impede Xirix’s movements, and this fact infuriates them to no end.

Lastly, the rakshasa pashas, who reside in the spires of the royal palace where the Emperor lived his last days, hear reports from the various aberrations that infest the sewer system and the dark streets not even the demons or devils enter. These hordes chafe at their pride, however, and so the pashas count the whispers of the wickedest members of the former city populace as their allies. Not ghosts in any sense of the word, the whispers are more impressions, emotional runoff and secret wishes left behind not by death, but by the empire’s fall itself. Tapping into these reservoirs of strange energy through a means provided by their allies in the unknown planes, the rakshasa understand the city and its energy better than any save perhaps the whispers themselves. Because of this, they are the closest to finding the god’s corpse, yet progress has slowed. Something stands in their way, a thing of light and shadow, the very same being that stymies the aboleth and pits the demons and devils against not only each other but the rest of the city. Xirix does its work well.

Center of Conflict

Perhaps the most dangerous place in all of Shayakand, it is in this once glorious courtyard of the Grand Palace, that the open battles for territory, power, status, magic and souls take place. Demon blood, devil’s bile, the nameless fluids of the aberration all co-mingle here and are funneled, via the city’s complex sewer system as modified by the aboleth, into the Chattel District. For twenty years, the fighting has continued at all hours. The entire area is deemed the only place where fighting can occur by all of the major factions. In a rare show of co-operation, the nalfeshnee and ice devil lords agreed to forbid conflict anywhere else in the city. The rakshasas were not at all fond of the idea, but with fewer numbers and plots both groups could easily undo with force, they acquiesced and quietly await the day they find the corpse.

For the aboleth’s part, the whole mess is merely a tool for the advancement of their children’s growth. They have noticed, however, that the force hampering their progress does not deign to enter the Center, or the area within a thousand feet of it. Therefore, they are slowly shifting the centers of their plans to that area. To that end, several double agents among the ranks of the demons and devils that oversee the ongoing battle work for the aboleth and their own faction. On the demon side, several crystals of Abyssal ice are placed at key points in the courtyard, collecting energy the demons do not understand and the aboleth wish to keep secret. The devils draft contracts in concentrated aboleth blood and circulate them throughout the ranks of devils that both live in the area and have stakes in the fighting.

The rakshasas look down from their spires in the palace in disgust at the constant bloodshed while sipping cups of finely distilled Sanguine Ecstacy. They have knowledge of the double agents and know the general location of roughly one third of the strange crystals. They have copies of several dozen aboleth blooded contracts which they’ve tried, unsuccessfully so far, to decode and exploit. They too have noticed Xirix’s, for they know its name, lack of motion in this place. While they find it curious, their plans take place on a much subtler, more subterranean scale. The catacombs beneath the city swarm with the whispers, and as the rakshasas learn more of the deep vaults, the closer they come to their, goal.

Xirix is, of course, not inactive in the Center. Far from it. This is perhaps its favorite place to “play” as it calls it. It was Xirix who provided the rakshasa with their intel, not the whispers, though it would thank that strange phenomenon if it could or felt a need to. Traversing the line between law and chaos and blending in “more than perfectly,” as the aboleth would call it if they knew, Xirix gathers little trinkets from each of the factions and scatters them around the entirety of the Old Empire, from one side of the peninsula to the other. More importantly, Xirix has, hidden and locked away the collected knowledge, or the majority of it, of every faction combined. If any of the warring parties found Xirix and somehow extracted that information, that group would find the god within months, rather than decades. Flitting between loyalties, moralities and motivations by the day, sometimes the hour, Xirix remains, and shall remain, at large for a long while yet.

Hell’s Bastion

Dominated by a river of molten steel tempered with the blood of the damned, what was once administrative district now resesmbles nothing of the kind. The gates of the noble’s quarter, masked by impossible illusion, show Asmodeus himself spewing forth the river of crimson slag. All around this horrid testament to the power and will of Hell dance the mindless hordes of lemures that feed on the infernal metal, growing slowly into whatever their Lord wishes of them.

Where the river ends, a spire of supercooled lead rises, transformed from mithril while retaining the toughness. At the peak of the spire the eyes of the gelugon master of Hell’s hordes gaze out over the city, directing the movements of its lieutenants through telepathy and carefully worded trigger phrases. A cleric of Hell itself rather than any of the archdukes, the ice devil wants for nothing in its chilly demense, but can feel the power of the god-corpse surging through the ground and into the metal. A crystal culled from the Mines of Mammon acts as an indirect connection to the divine energies emanated from the corpse, but can divulge neither the keys to its prison nor the exact location of the vault.

Infesting the tower and spilling onto the fields of tempered steel that were once homes of the wealthy merchants not quite rich enough to live in the noble’s quarter. Barabzus and erinyes patrol the ground and the sky. Hell’s archers collect the wrath that still hangs in the air around the failed nobles’ former homes. Hamatulas prowl the rifts in the earth carved by the reshaping of the spire, searching for and secreting away the hidden clues to and of the god-corpse.

However, perhaps the most important task the devils undertake as they take part in their dual role of power acquisition and divine energy collection is the simplest. They want to continue the expansion of a virtually undetectable sphere of infernal energy, to cover the entire city, and, should all go well, the whole of Shayakand. Unfortunately, every other faction besides the demons know about the sphere. The rakshasa, through the whispers, knew of it first. The aboleth know the most, but either do not understand the intention or care enough to do anything. If the demons know, it is only their nalfeshnee leader who has any idea what it may or may not portend. Regardless, they seem little concerned, and the eternal bloodbath that occurs in their part of the city continues unabated. Xirix haunts them in the shadows of the lead tower and the darkest corners of the ice devil’s living quarters, smiling inwardly as the infernal pawn struggles against a chain it can never break.

Chaos Uncontrolled

At the center of the sluice, which feeds and dilutes into the Chattel District, is a simple mound, several dozen feet high, made of bones, disappointing demon servants and whatever else she feels like: the throne of Izirales, nalfeshnee vassal to the Lord of the Unknown. She makes few decrees to her servants, talking instead to groups divided by general ability and power. To them is a single task, to be carried out in whatever way they feel fit. Izir, as she calls herself, is in perfect tune with the pure chaos of the demon and knows that despite what her underlings do, ultimately, serve her purposes. Her agreement with the ice devil (whose name she wishes he would say, only so that she could defame it), is a direct order from the Lord and it chafes at her pride with every second that passes. The strict limitations the devil set down were approved before she read them, and her only solace is her master’s portfolio: the unknown.

The slums and waste pits of the City were the least of its splendors, yet there were beautiful things here to. Sinkholes for sewage blocked by obsidian stoppers and material waste incinerated into a fine violet mist. Now, those places spew forth untold repulsiveness. The sewers serve up both failed aboleth experiments for the demons to feast on and the worst the city has to offer. The demons use it as “bathwater.” The material waste is now just that: “wasted” pieces of the material, plucked away by demons, toyed with and cast aside. It molders and stinks, bending the air around it just enough to be revolting.

Because the demons do as they “wish,” they do not seem to have any overarching goals to drive their activities. Izir knows otherwise, as she wants nothing more than to spread the indescribable chaos of the Abyss across the entire world and into the space beyond it. That she cannot accomplish this alone or with the help of “her” servants she doesn’t know, but the aboleth are keenly aware of it and the contract with the ice devil clearly states as such. Xirix still feels the faintest attachment to the demons and so dances with his shadow demon cousins until they just begin to see him. Then he vanishes, seemingly without having done anything.

Caverns of the Unknowable

When they named their current base of operations, the aboleth were unaware their future neighbors would a) be demons and b) be servants to the Lord of the Unknown. Despite this, their pride and innate knowledge of “we were here first” keeps them from changing the name of the cave system. Besides its name, no one has any good idea of what the inner workings of their home looks like. Ostensibly, it simply is a large cave system with a huge central chamber, wherein a gigantic sphere of water, opaque enough to be almost a solid mass surrounded by strange apparatus that modern scientific and magical knowledge cannot begin to fathom. Whether this is actually what the caves look like, or indeed if they are even caves, is unknown to the demons, devils and rakshasa equally. None of them have the means to decode the infinitely complex equations that make up whatever it is that is happening down beneath the city streets. Yet the aboleth have the ability to connect to each and every section of the city through the sewers, and, barring their own connection to the whispers, they have ways of gathering information from anywhere and everywhere within the walls of the City of Spires.

Most importantly of all, not even Xirix can penetrate their barriers. He doesn’t have to. They move just slow enough for him to do everything he needs to do.

Palace of Masters

If anywhere is fit for the rulers of a city to reside, it is in the Palace of Masters. Every creature that resides in the city, even without bowing to them, gives credit to the rakshasa clan of fifteen members, all female. Their fortress of pleasures and splendor encompasses the nobles quarter and the once ruined former royal palace. After they arrived, only a year and a half after the aboleth, the fifteen, each more powerful than an average pit fiend, balor or aboleth master, set to work expanding the palace walls to the walls of the nobles quarter, making the palace the size of an entire district. Once completed, they populated their home with a variety of creatures from strange planes between the larger spheres. Jungle worlds with octopus plants, ocean worlds of freezing steam and fiery worlds of constant stellar wind are but three of the exotic locales from which the palace inhabitants come. The wonders that make up the inside of the castle defy description, as they are as varied as the creatures that dwell within.

The tallest spire in the City of Spires is the seat of power for the rakshasa and also the housing for the strange material that allows them contact with the whispers and their connections among the spaces between. It is from here that they guide the aberrations that serve them towards two goals: the god-corpse and a secret that only the rakshasa could keep. The fifteen rule as an oligarchy and make no decisions as individuals. Should any of them do so, the agreement set down on their creation as rakshasa is null and void, and the entire group would cease to exist. This natural connection lets them hear the whispers as though one were hearing it, and so they have full command of the information at all times. To their chagrin, the whispers knows next to nothing about the god-corpse, and what information it gathers is spotty and inconsistent. The wards on the vault of Shayakand are strong.

Xirix has no dealings within the palace. It’s reasoning is that there is simply nothing there for it.

Adventures Amongst the Spires

For low level adventurers:

The abundance of low power monsters that inhabit the City and their predations in the surrounding lands could lead to rescue missions to the Chattel District, retrieval of an imp’s binding contract for a friend or important NPC, the slaughter of a dretch horde massing near one of the gates. Stealth missions are truly the order of the day here, as the creatures in control may not have time to check everything that comes into their territory. However, escaping the City of Spires is just as much an adventure, for any overt action will draw the attention of the powerful in the city. Outsiders are not tolerated and exiting will be a danger beyond anything before it.

For mid-level adventurers:

Things become much more active once characters reach mid level. They have a name for themselves, their entry, or, if they’ve done something really exemplary, proximity to the city is almost immediately noticed. However, few in the city would directly oppose them at first. Curiosity is more prevalent than open hostility. Missions into the city could be minor assassination, bartering, trading, even. There could be diplomatic missions if they are not with demons, or with demons if the characters are good enough. The PCs are still too weak for an all out assault on the city.

For high-level adventurers:

If they are so inclined, the PCs could, go on a quest to undermine the power structure of the entire city. They could raise an army to topple it. They could make “peace” among the leaders of the four factions or call a complete cease-fire. At the ultimate level, the PCs could delve into the vault of the god-corpse and do as they wished with it. The possibilities are endless.

Many fantasy settings are set in a world that is roughly based on Aristotle’s ideas. There are four fundamental elements, fire, earth, air and water. The fifth element, aether, exists as the building block of the stars and the heavens. These ideas express themselves in-game worlds with elemental planes of existence for each of the four fundamental elements. Based on the existence of these elemental planes, all kinds of creatures, civilizations and a myriad of other items enter the game world. Pathfinder has their own product that describes the Inner and Outer Planes that uses these concepts.

Now, imagine a place where no one believes in the elemental planes of existence. In other words, there is no plane of fire/water/air/earth, or elemental chaos. What would the world look like without these staples?

The implications may not be obvious at first. The most obvious change would be the lack of elementals. However, it goes deeper than that. If there are no elementals, then the traditional power source for golems and other constructs is not available. That’s just two of the many effects. What other effects do you see in a fantasy setting based on a lack of elemental planes? Feel free to provide thoughts in the comments.

One other consideration is this: If there are no elemental planes, what takes their place in the universe? To address this, let’s look at Anaxagoras‘ specific ideas. These ideas are in summary form, so some of his conclusions may not appear obvious at first.

He held that everything but the mind is infinitely divisible and that even the smallest portion of matter contains some amount of every element. Element in this case is an idea, not a real thing. Anaxagora believed there was no such thing as a pure element. Nothing was pure gold, pure water, pure fire, pure metal, etc. So when he talks about an element, he is usually talking about some aspect of an object.

For example, he said that snow contains the opposites of black and white and is called white only because white predominates in it. The composition of snow goes beyond white and black; snow also contains hot and cold, water and earth, and other things. In a sense, snow contains the whole of reality, each snowflake containing a specific share of all other things. The differences in form result from different portions of the elements. The variety of substances and forms we perceive is thus explained by the complexity of seemingly endless numbers of possible combinations

What this means in practical game terms is that since there is no such thing as pure fire, pure water, etc, no elemental planes can exist. Someone could object and say that there are planes that are predominantly fire, predominantly water and so on. However, the ethereal plane is also gone because there is no pure ether. There is no vast ethereal plane that holds countless numbers of demi-planes.

What exists instead is addressed by looking at the mind. Anaxagoras held that the universe was created when the mind gave shape to the vast mixture of matter that exists at the beginning. The mind is the only pure element, it is not a mixture of anything. The mind can shape matter into anything, but cannot separate one element from another.

All of that is a bit heady, so let’s put it in simple game terms.

The gods gave shape to the universe. The gods appear to be limited only in the fact that they cannot create a pure element. In order for some plane to exist that is predominantly fire, predominantly water, etc is that a god or other great mind must want to shape a plane in that way. In essence, the only thing outside the material plane is what used to be called the Outer Planes.

So then the question may be asked, “what happens to elementals when they travel to Shayakand?” That’s a question I have ideas for, but I’d be really interested in hearing what others have to say.

One last thing – for those that are Greek philosophy scholars, I’m aware that there are some misstatements and inaccuracies in how I presented Anaxagoras’ ideas. I welcome any advice in clarifying his ideas to further pursue these ideas.

This article contains content for Geheimkrieg, Nevermet Press’ alternate World War II pulp setting. Our content is community driven so we want feedback from you. Please leave a comment here, write about it on your own blog, or contact the Lead Designer, Michael Brewer, if you would like to contribute directly.

Stuttgart, 01:15, 12Mar42

“Ich hab’s gefunden!” the soldier whispered to himself as he stuffed the fluorescently glowing canister into his satchel.

Wilmot Schröder hurried along and heaved himself up and over what used to be the outer wall of Stuttgart’s most infamous Nazi research lab. It was now just a blackened mass of crushed concrete and twisted metal.  The night air carried with it no sound, nor smell, nor scent of life.  Putting out of commission Das Schloss, as the facility had come to be known by the Allied Forces, was no small challenge to the Allies or the Merc Squads that had assaulted it. Finally, a well-timed bombing raid proved successful in destroying the stronghold.

Schröder felt his bag to ensure that the canister was still there. It was the final component to his Dr. Merken’s masterpiece.  He thanked the Almighty he hadn’t had to use his pistol this time and disappeared into the night.

Ulm, 06:53, 12Mar42

“Where in the hell is that bastard?  He should have been here well over an hour ago!”  Professor Merken tapped his reading glasses against the instrument-laden table as he cursed his Vaterland-loving assistant in English.  Tomorrow it would most likely be French.  Merken appreciated the Nazis’ sense of scientific exploration, but didn’t give a damn about Greater Germany, the 3rd Reich or anything outside of his current legacy-in-the-making…The Viewer.

The door burst open and an exhausted Wilmot Schröder stumbled in, collapsing on the floor.  “Was ist passiert??” Merken demanded to know what had happened, though did not wish to waste any time with the boy’s pathetic English.

The boy, no more than 17, coughed up bright red blood onto the floor.  Between spats of blood and bile, he mouthed the word “Amerikaner”.

“Did you bring the battery?  Die Batterie.  Hast du die Batterie mitgebracht?” Professor Merken watched as Schröder’s life fled from his broken body.  There was little chance that Americans had actually wasted a bullet on his assistant.  Most likely it was a hunting party, little more than a band of thieves lurking in the dark forest between the Grand Research Facility and the small, private lab Merken called home.  He dug through the torn backpack, hoping to hell the battery hadn’t gotten lost or stolen.

“Yes.”  Merken felt the warmth of the alien device as he withdrew it and tossed the grungy bag aside.  “All this trouble for such a small piece of space rock.”  The professor looked at the metallic object, briefly forgetting the urgency of the moment.  The loud bell of the antique Swiss clock in the corner striking 7:00 am snapped him out of the hypnotic sway the object had held over him.  “Scheiße.”

The door opened and in stepped a highly decorated Gruppenführer of the SS.  “Heil Hitler,” he began, stepping over the dead assistant’s body without so much as a courtesy glance.  This guy was a real son-of-a-bitch.

Merken let a quiet Heil Hitler escape his throat.  “Good morning, Herr Schultz.”

“Is it ready?”  Straight to business.

“Almost.  My aide there brought the final piece to this puzzle just a few minutes ago,” Professor Merken explained as he nodded his head in Schröder’s general direction.

“Finish the assembly so I can get the hell out of this shithole you call a lab.”

“Yes, sir,” answered the frustrated and pressured scientist.  If everything wasn’t aligned perfectly, the device wouldn’t work.  “It’ll only take me a few minutes, then I’ll make sure my theories are correct…which they are.” Merken let that last sentence trail off into silence.

“Will this thing really do what you say?  Will it really open a portal to another dimension or are you just full of shit?”  Schultz had mastered the English curse words early in his studies, as he found English the perfect language in which to degrade someone.

Quite irritated now, Merken ran through the instructions to the obtuse officer who couldn’t see past the tip of his patriotic nose.  “No, it doesn’t open a portal…sir.  The Viewer allows the operator to instantaneously observe events as they unfold in parallel universes.  It’s the most perfect piece of reconnaissance equipment ever imagined.”

Merken tightened the final bolt and stepped back to enjoy the beauty of his new masterpiece.  He then placed his forehead against the leather strap designed exactly for that purpose and flipped on the machine.

“Scheiss—!” he screamed before falling completely silent and motionless for several seconds.  The SS Officer hurried to the machine and grasped the scientist’s shoulder but was shocked violently by a buildup of electric charge around the man.

Merken regained use of his motor skills and awareness as he removed his head from the device.

“You’re as white as my grandfather’s hair.  What’s wrong?” asked Schultz.  “Does it work?”

Merken stumbled slowly backward toward his fallen comrade lying on the floor of the modest lab, oozing what little blood remained in him.  “Yes…in a manner of speaking,” began the distracted man.

“What did you see?” Schultz demanded.

“I saw…well, that…” Merken grabbed the assistant’s Luger and quickly pointed it at the officer’s head.  “I saw that this is the only way I’m getting out of here alive.  In those few seconds I observed 14 different universes.  This is the only way I’m getting out of here.  You could have had this device to monitor Allied troop movements, figure out how to end this stalemate, get rid of those fucking aliens…anything…but you were going to kill me.”

“That’s the way things are done, Merken.  You can kill me, but there are many more of us than there are of you.  I can find a hundred assholes on the street that can do your job.  Why do you think we made you work in this rubble heap of a lab?  You’re nothing.”

“Fuck you.” He squeezed, and the Luger made a small pop. Five grams of lead flew into the waiting head of the German officer.  The bullet ripped the man’s eye apart and turned the right half of his brain to mush before bursting through the back of his skull, letting gray matter and blood splash against the floor and wall of the tiny work space.  Merken dropped the gun and grabbed his invention, rushing headlong into the night.

Algeria, 15:44, 08May42

“Sir, something’s cresting the hill.”

“I see it.  Looks like some sort of machine.  Sergeant, take a squad and flank it from the south.  I’ll stay here and confront it head on.”

As Staff Sergeant Young rounded up bravo section, Captain Trent and his soldiers took position behind some trashed mud huts.  They watched as a mechanic exosuit smoothly made its way down the hill and towards the waiting ambush.  In the middle of the battlefield the suit stopped and remained motionless for a few seconds, then animated again as a crackling spark of blue light traveled quickly from the suit into the ground.

“What the hell was that?” asked Corporal Jeffries.

Captain Trent shook his head, “No idea.”

The exosuit bolted toward the waiting soldiers and let loose a flurry of rocket-propelled grenades to the south from the launcher attached to its left arm.  As the grenades landed, Captain Trent heard cries of agony over the radio.

“How the hell did he know they were there?” asked Jeffries as the squad relinquished their hiding places and leapt into the open, releasing a barrage of gunfire at the mechanical monster.  Whoever was operating the suit knew exactly where to run and when to duck.

“This isn’t working, sir,” cried a private seconds before a bullet found its way through his neck.

“My God.  It must be one of the Fox’s new super soldiers,” said Trent.  “It doesn’t have any Nazi markings, though.”  He dodged the gunfire and falling soldiers as he a bee-line for the radio operator, who had gotten separated from the officer at the onset of the battle.  Reaching for the radio, Trent switched frequencies and managed to utter one sentence before his life ended.

“Germans have super soldier able to see the future…

This article contains content for Geheimkrieg, Nevermet Press’ alternate World War II pulp setting. Our content is community driven so we want feedback from you. Please leave a comment here, write about it on your own blog, or contact the Lead Designer, Michael Brewer, if you would like to contribute directly.

Edited by Cassey Toi

“Jesus Christ! What kind of sick fuck did that?” I spit the words past teeth clenched on one end of the tourniquet I’m applying to my shredded left arm. My forearm looked like hamburger and my blood was flowing freely. It would heal soon enough on its own, but I still wasn’t used to my new regenerative abilities.

Tying off the compression wrap, I kneel down to inspect the carcass of the hideous creature that had caused my injury. “Lieutenant, this is definitely the work of Fremder,” Zora informed me. Zora Skerrit was a biologist attached to my unit by the OSS. Her Slavic accent was more pronounced when she was frightened. “The mutations resemble similar specimens found in a laboratory in Argentina we believe he was operating. It also shares traits with the Parisian Marauders.”

Parisian Marauder MKII by Rob Torno

The creature was once human, or rather, several humans. It had been hanging from the ceiling in the passageway of the underground bunker we were searching, when it surprised us and pounced on me. It was disgusting. It scampered around on six arms… where six hands used to have fingers and thumbs, there were four razor sharp talons.

The arms were elongated, with an extra segment, effectively giving each arm two elbows. These arms protruded from three torsos conjoined at the waist, almost as if their flesh has been kneaded together like clay. The creature had obviously been formed out of two men and one woman. The mutant has no legs, but the other end of each torso terminates with a head in which resides a giant, impossibly large, needle-toothed maw. Each head sits atop a long rubbery neck.

One of those maws had minced my left forearm before my team had been able to react. It had continued to chew on my arm even after Sergeant Burgess had lit the other two heads on fire with his pyrokinetic blasts. I had to resort to my trusty sidearm to spray the mutant’s grey matter on the wall. Burgess’ fire did nothing to improve the smell of the beast either.

“Nazi bastards must have realized they were wasting a precious commodity by killing Jews and instead decided to turn them into beasts of war,” Private Jasinski, our scout, muttered as he turned over an arm with several digits tattooed along the forearm.

“We’re burnin’ daylight kids,” said Burgess. “Let’s get the shit we came for so we can get the hell out of here.”

I looked down at my arm, the wounds had already closed. I untied the tourniquet and used it to mop up the blood which was the only trace that an injury had ever occurred. I threw the blood soaked compression wrap onto the floor beside the mutant and nodded my head in agreement with Burgess, “You’re right, Sergeant. Men, check your weapons then move out. Continue down the corridor, don’t bunch up. Maintain a five yard distance with the man in front of you.”

Jasinski turned to me and said, “You know sir, you shouldn’t waste our medical supplies, some of us don’t recover from injuries as well as you do.”

I looked up at Jasinski, “I tend to forget I’m so resilient when my arm’s being chewed on by a mutant monster. Jasinski, I want you to take point.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Jasinski responded as his form faded from sight. I couldn’t even hear the footfalls of combat boots as he moved ahead of the unit to keep anymore mutant nasties from surprising us. Privates Marcone and Campbell ensured their Thompsons were good to go before stepping off down the corridor at a brisk, but cautious pace. Zora and I followed while Burgess brought up the rear.

It’s early September, 1945, though I can’t quite remember the exact date; the days all run together after a while. We’ve been tracking and eliminating German insurgents that had been wreaking havoc behind the Paris front-lines for the past month. The local units had dubbed them the Parisian Marauders. Only these insurgents were not your average krauts; they were mutant terrors very similar to the beast we just put down. Except the ones tearing apart GIs in Paris were still single monstrosities instead of the macabre amalgamation we just encountered.

My squad is a special team of commandos assembled by the O.S.S., the Office of Strategic Services. Each of us had a unique gift that set us apart from regulars, even other highly trained commandos. Though people like us were becoming popularized on radio programs, newspapers, and even on the silver screen, I suspect people possessing powers beyond the capabilities of average humans have always existed. It sort of lends new credence to Greek myths like Hercules or even more recent legends and folktales like John Henry. Only, modern marvels like the television are making the world a smaller place along with radio and telephones. So information travels faster and is becoming easier to validate.

The governments of the world mostly ignored Extraordinaries, the label the papers have officially pinned on them, or treated them as threats. Them. I guess I mean us. Well, at least until the Great War. That’s when they began instituting programs to recruit them for use in clandestine missions. But they found it difficult to command what amounted to a bunch of hot shots with powers beyond the government’s limited imagination. So they turned to programs to develop Extraordinaries in-house, so to speak. Most of those programs failed too; Jasinski being one of a handful of recent successes from some project called Wraith. The rest of us were born Extraordinary or, like myself, gained that status through mishap.

I see Pvt. Jasinski’s form waver as if looking at a mirage as he and his equipment turns invisible so he can scout ahead of the squad. Hopefully we can secure this bunker without anymore surprises and shut down Fremder and his vile operation before anyone else falls victim to his experiments. I hear our boys in white lab coats back stateside are real close to finishing some super weapon to end this war; it could not end soon enough.

America is still fighting a war of attrition in the Pacific and the atomic weapons that could end it have yet to be deployed. The Manhattan Project, which was tasked with creating the first functioning atomic bombs, has suffered several major setbacks from Axis agents who sabotaged their plutonium enrichment program. The African theater was secured as planned, but the Germans are using guerrilla warfare tactics against the occupying Allies in Egypt and proving difficult to root out.

The Soviets were routed during the German offensive of Operation Barbarossa. The winter was not as harsh as normal, and there are some intelligence reports that indicate some sort of Italian weather device guaranteed the Axis victory against the unprepared Red Army. The remnants of the Soviet military withdrew into the harsh expanse of Siberia after the destruction of Moscow, but have recently made contact with Allies and are planning a massive counter offensive against the Eastern Front of the Third Reich.

But this war is far from conventional.

As the second World War trudges on, both the Allied and Axis powers begin to look for alternative resources to secure the final victory. Thus the Secret War, the Geheimkrieg has begun. UFOs have begun supplementing the Luftwaffe over Parisian skies. Dead soldiers are rising to eat their comrades. Strange electrical storms roll out from Siberia. Extraordinary people begin to make their presence known and are answering the call to arms. Become a part of Geheimkrieg and stop the Nazis and their evil agenda.

M&M Superlink

Earlier this week, we received communication from the Mutants & Masterminds Line Developer, Jon Leitheusser, that our M&M Superlink license query for the Geheimkrieg setting had conceptual approval.

This is great news as it means we are free to move forward on development of Geheimkrieg. Of course, all material is still subject to final approval prior to release by Green Ronin, but I’m confident we’ll be able to meet expectations.

As always, our patrons will be able to read most of the non-mechanics here on the NMP blog before everything is composed along with their mechanics and published in book form. In fact, return here tomorrow to read some fiction that introduces a little of the alternate WWII history of Geheimkrieg.

This sale even includes our own eBook “The Desire“!!! This supplement is our first PDF and is fully compatible with 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. You can find out more about it here on Nevermet Press, or head over to RPGNow.com and pick it up at 25% OFF.

Introductions and Building a City in Miniature

Hello O’Readers of Nevermet Press! The name’s Steven Schutt, and I have a few things up on the site already, two villains, a pseudo good undead cult leader and other things you may or may not have enjoyed. Regardless, I’m here to stay, and I hope that as my writing evolves so will your enjoyment of my work, and even more the work of the other great authors here at Nevermet. This first blog deals with my own ideas about building a city of adventure, not adventurers. As part of the Shayakand campaign setting spearheaded by John Payne, the City of Spires is the ruined city reclaimed by the vilest beings known to the Shayakand universe, all seeking a singular object of unimaginable power. Below are my musings and general design decisions that accompany the creation of this city in miniature.

Compression

The first thing I had to remember when I went about designing a city is that it isn’t a place I had the time, space or ability to expand it into a fully described and living place. I had to take all the ideas in my head about this city, teaming with hundreds of horrid monsters from across the mulitverse and spread them around in what was once the greatest city of an empire. Further, I could not describe every district in detail, or at least the detail that I myself want. Each of them has to have its own allotted space, but when I get down to the four main areas of interest, each has to have a relatively equal weight with the other three. Therefore, there is quite a bit that I had to cut. For example, when I talk about the aboleth lair, for aboleths are probably my favorite evil masterminds, I can’t describe the vast swathes of enslaved servitors used as fuel to maintain the sphere of water the aboleths use as a home. I can certainly mention them, as I did here, and I can give five or ten words about how they got there, but the complexes in which they are held remain outside of my ability to describe.

Instead, when I have to compress what could easily be 30,000-50,000 words into roughly 4,000-5,000, I will describe in general the locations and what they look like. It is the actions of those living in the various districts (or beneath them), their plots and their manipulations that interest me more. More than this, I want to focus on key individuals in each locale of influence. To that end, each main area has a few controlling leaders that maintain relative order in those under them. The actions of these few are effectively the actions of the many in the city.

Uniqueness with Unity

One of the things I want to create with the City of Spires is a sense of unity while still allowing each part of the city to be unique in its own way. The aboleth caves should, in some way, relate to the other, less alien yet equally evil palace district, and thence to the noble’s quarter and the spice (magic) district. Each should somehow connect to the other, perhaps in the form of similar spying techniques, double crosses, deals made, assassins dealt with, information traded and collected in like fashion.

To maintain a sense of uniqueness, though, each major controlled district has something strange that gives its rulers a leg up on their competition. For the aboleth, it is their mastery of the mind and incomparable knowledge of the cave systems beneath the city. For another group it is a strange connection to the psychic remnants of the dead and fled of the old empire.

Of course, there must be some sort of counterbalance for any advantage, but for the City of Spires, I thought that instead of having several different disadvantages, there should be one universal agent that acts against all the groups. That leads to:

Wild Cards

While there is only one well-known, if not well understood, wild card in the City of Spires, there may be more. I think that inter-faction conflict is a great way to keep any one group from reaching the ultimate goal; it should never be the only one. For this project, I thought that, since the city is filled with evil, something not evil should be the universal thorn in the side. This something is not good either, because that is cliché. This something, which you’ll discover when the City of Spires hits the Nevermet Press site, is almost without definition and unique in it own way. It accomplishes the unity, adding its own special touch to the entire setting.

Driving Goal­­­

Of course, four different groups from across space and planes would not converge on a single city without a very good reason. To that end, I decided something nigh-world breaking was in order. The only problem with those kind of things is that they tend to grate on the nerves of some, because as soon as anyone gains the power to change the world in a big way, things get hairy real quick. To keep things simple, at least for a long time coming, I made this end goal something out of reach of everyone of any importance within the city walls. Further, the wild card has its own reasons for keeping this giant power source out of the hands of those controlling the city.

Bringing in the Party

At the end of the piece, there is a fairly sizable chunk of information on how GMs can bring in their own parties adventuring in Shayakand, from low to high level and on both sides of the morality coin. While the city certainly caters easily to the high levels in a world-shattering campaign end exploration, there are still parts of the place virtually untouched by its current occupants for the sheer sake of lack of interest of nothing of “any real value towards the cause.” What this entails will ultimately be up to the GM and his party’s wishes, but several prominent areas make their presence known.

And that, as they say, is that.

Steven Schutt, Nevermet Press Content Developer

Felix Sundown, by Matt Lichtenwalner

Hello again!

Finally, we  have time to sit down and discuss Loaerth & Feywyrd again. What a pleasure! I’m glad to see you again, and this time around lets chat some more about the Fey. Some of you had some questions, and hopefully we’ll get them answered.

Who are the Fey you ask? Well, for one, feytrolls aren’t all of them. There is fey blood running through the veins of creatures other than my own kind. Our brothers and sisters in magic, whose very flesh is made or tainted with the stuff of the Feywyrd, include elves, hodolu faerys, giants, myrmidons and many others which I have not even had the chance to meet.

Some, like the elves, were in the World since the dawning of history, they are not true natives of the World. Looking back eons, myth speaks of the elves fleeing from another world into our own. They fled, as an entire race, from things so dark and unspeakable that the names were eventually either lost or stricken from their history. They stayed and made a home here. It’s also thought that the elves brought my people, the feytrolls, with them as servants, watchers, and scholars. And, they brought with them Magic.

The humans at the time were probably living as tribal nomads, or in rudimentary villages when Magic was first taught to them. The World’s primitive dwarf and troll peoples are believed to have been unable to learn its secrets or refused it at the outset. Nonetheless, the humans learned about magic from these elven newcomers and, within a few generations, boasted formidable sorcerers and ritualists in their own right. Eventually, the dwarves and trollkind also fostered traditions of Magic that were unique to each of their racial heritages.

In time, the elves prospered and eventually became the dominant race of the world. They eventually built vast civilizations on the backs of trolls and dwarves. Humans, for the most part, escaped this fate and were able to live in relative peace with their elven counterparts. But only the men and women of Loaerth managed to carve out an independent existence. These people, and perhaps a few more in other pockets of the World, escaped subjugation at the hands of the elves through careful negotiation and strong military might.

What is Loaerth? Just look out the window! Loaerth is a coastal city state that sits on the edge of the Degra Sea. Loaerth has a long, and deep rooted, history of independence. It’s a city of merchants and scholars, soldiers and sailors, artists and thieves. Loaerth is a flickering light, struggling to stay lit even as the winds of change try to blow it out. It is and has been the center of the world for five centuries, ever since the Helfay left the world a vacant place. All the non-Fey, the races of Man, have grown to call Loaerth home. They have also ventured far out into the wild to explore the empty frontier – empty because there are whole cities that were suddenly devoid of anyone living there after the Helfay.

What are the people of Loaerth like? Considering you are no doubt new here, I’ll take a bit more care in answering that. Well, for one, the humans of Loaerth for the most part keep to traditional, plain dress. All too often you will see a man or woman dressed decidedly boorishly, only to be sporting the latest clockwork or coal-work gizmo, bauble, or trinket. “The more it whirls, the more it twirls.” they say. I’m still not sure what in the gods name that means, but you’ll hear them say it all the time

The dwarves of Loaerth are staunchy folk. Quick to anger, but dependable. Clever too. Most of the new gizmos and “wonders of the world” that have been made in the last century or so were invented by dwarven machinists. As you would expect, most dwarves love to drink ale and eat hearty meals that would send many a grown man to a physician. The interesting thing about dwarves is the way they live. Their homes are dense, I mean 10 to 20 families to a house. They prefer these deep basements where they all lay about in tight quarters. I’ve heard them say it makes them feel “safe” while they sleep. Baths? Forget about it. They do take dust baths in the summer, but I have yet to see a dwarf with a bar of soap. Not that they are averse to water, but soap for some reason is taboo.

The trolls of Loaerth are few and far between. Most trollkind moved out of the city a century or so ago after a great fire burned the Troll Ghetto to the ground. They have a few scattered communities , so I’ve heard, hidden away in valleys rarely traveled by city folk. They are more commonly seen along the frontier. Trolls are a quiet, thoughtful folk. Slow to anger and gentle with their hands, even for their great size. You will often see trolls in the employ of merchants looking to travel, or in the company of explorers venturing out to the frontier in the hopes of finding lost riches. Trolls, unlike dwarves, have a unique language that has never gone out of use. It is said that they do not write down their own history, but that it is part of their language so by using trollspeak, “Gua’Fig Na”, they are keeping their history alive as well.

There’s so much more to tell. I’m just at a lost on where to start or to continue from. What else would you like to know? Please ask me anything! Leave a comment after this interview is done, or send me question via tweeting birds.

Until next time, I’ll leave you with a common nighttime blessing for children:

“May the gods wrap me in copper and coal.
Protect me from harm, and heat my soul.
May my dreams spark the light keeps hodolu away,
and may I wake with my heart free from the Fey”
– Blessing For a Child’s Night

click each image for a high resolution version

In the Time Before Time, in the Great Darkness (a couple of months ago, online) the Creator (John Payne) brought forth a world called Shayakand. It is a land shrouded in mystery. One inhabited by a great evil known as Devdanchar. As one of the content developers and artists here at Nevermet Press, I was asked to form a likeness of this evil (I get to make pictures!). A form was selected from the many that the Darkness birthed (the pencil version of a thumbnail sketch) and was given shape (the shaded image) and then life was breathed into it (the pixels were pushed around until it looked better).The Almighty Founders (Jonathan and Michael) spoke and proclaimed that this image should be made known to the world (they said to post it on the site).  It is so.

I hope you like it. Check out the link to Devdanchar’s concept and backstory and compare to the image above. There’s an important detail missing – can you spot what it is? What explanation could be given for its absence in light of the backstory? (see the secrete upside down answer below)

Let us know what you think by posting comments (even nasty ones), but know that the Mighty Founders see all (and they’ll probably delete the nasty).

Ethos

When creating Shayakand, a lot of thought went into how different the humans and other humanoid races are from traditionally European-based fantasy settings. Amongst those differences is a concept called Purusartha. According to Purusartha, the four essentials in life are:

• Kama – desire and sensual pleasure
• Artha – wealth and glory
• Dharma – doing the right thing
• Moksha – liberation from the cycle of reincarnation.

Note: Doing the right thingis a loaded phrase that will be explained in another post. For now, keep in mind that dharma in Shayakand is not exactly the same as dharma in Hinduism. The most notable difference is the lack of the non-violence principle traditionally found in Hinduism.

The average Shayakandi sees the first two principles as practical ways of life,  essentially: make money and be happy. The last two are guidelines that govern how the practical ways of life are expressed. Doing the right thing clears the mind to receive divine knowledge. Receiving enough divine knowledge allows a person to be attuned to the divine and thus escape the cycle of reincarnation. As a result, many of the excesses that can come from pursuing money, power, and pleasure are tempered with the knowledge that there is a severe consequence for a person’s actions.

For a human to be a villain, they essentially have to believe that whatever they are doing will be worth the punishment they receive in the next life. A young human might make an effective villain for some time, but as he or she ages, thoughts will inevitably turn to the next life. In other words, human bad guys will not make good villains for a long-term campaign.

However, if a creature is already free from the cycle of reincarnation, there is no check against the potential excesses of Kama and Artha. It is for this reason that many of the ‘bad guys’ in Shayakand are believed to be demons or spirits. Even the humanoid gnolls, ogres and oni are believed to be evil spirits in a fleshy shell.

Enter our villain, a rakshasa named Devdanchar. In Pathfinder terms, he is an native outsider. What places him in Shayakand is the description of a rakshasa found in it’s ecology:

They embody what is taboo among most societies, and in the shape of those it seeks to defile, a rakshasa gorges itself on these hideous acts. Were they human, these acts of cannibalism, blasphemy, and worse would mark them as criminals condemned to the cruelest of hells.

In other words, rakshasa are the sickest and most depraved creatures in a given society. Give a creature like this immense power and wealth and you have the seeds for an arch villain.

Here’s a sketch so of Devdanchar. Some details are missing, but I hope that enough is provided to give you some ideas. Tommorrow you’ll get a chance to see some artwork on Devdanchar from Rob Torno.

Villain Sketch

Devdanchar is the name of one of the most powerful landowners in the entire Shayakand region. From his seat of power in Shayakand’s largest city, Ravandre,  he controls the destinies of thousands . He owns dozens of mercantile businesses spanning almost every city, town, and watering hole in the area. With a word, he can control nearly any good or service coming in or leaving Shayakand.

For example, in Ravendre there was no rice for sale in the city for over a month. Hundreds  starved while the city bureaucracy was unable to do anything to help its citizens. As great as the tragedy was inside the city, the greater tragedy occurred with the destruction of fifty merchant ships and the slaughter of hundreds of farmers. His reasons? Devdanchar’s motives were to have a show of force in reaction to a protest over a docking fee for one of his merchant vessels.

Despite his great power, Devdanchar is consumed with foul passions, the greatest of which is his desire to kill. He indulges his bloodlust monthly in his own personal gladiatorial arena. Fighting with only his trusted kukri, he reigns as the undefeated champion. He has fought lions, gnolls, ogres and all manner of creatures whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Occasionally, he will place some foul demon in the pits and systematically torture it to death to the howling cheers of the mob. All matches end in death, but death rarely comes quickly.

His human appearance hides a darker secret. In reality, Devdanchar is half Rakshasa demon, half shape-shifter. In his true form, he has the head of a tiger and the body of a powerful man. Envious of his father, the King of all Rakshasas, he builds wealth and armies to prove his worth as an heir to the throne. Unfortunately for Devdanchar, he is an illegitimate child and has no claim to the throne. His father is King, but his mother is not the queen. She was not even a rakshasa, but a doppleganger. She was indulging a desire to affect Rakshasa society and its most powerful member, the King. The King became aware of her existence and impregnated her as a lesson to her. Abandoned by his mother at birth, Devdanchar was ‘adopted’ by the royal court and raised as a servant of the royal household.

Rejected by rakshasas as a half-breed, Devdanchar has a particular fondness for destroying full-blooded rakshasas. His hatred of them runs deep. He has often travelled to the plane of his birth to systematically eliminate his half-brothers and half-sisters.

From his rakshasa father, Devdanchar embodies what is taboo. He gorges himself in hideous acts of murder, plunder, gluttony, avarice and wrath. From his doppleganger mother, Devdanchar has gained the ability to change shape and assume the likes and mannerisms of others.

Yet, Devdanchar is a paradox. He can often be found in scholarly pursuits. His libraries have no equal in terms of depth and breadth of knowledge. He has achieved, by Shayakandi standards, the necessary knowledge and skills to be a well-educated man. He strives to use the power of his mind to control his carnal nature. Always the manipulator, he has found ways to manipulate the world around him with his mind.  In addition to being able to detect the thoughts of others, he can detect others with the power to shape the world around them with their thoughts.

When wrestling with his desires, he has been seen alternately assuming the shape of his father and mother in an argument with each other.

Questions

• Is such attention to the ethos of Shayakand worthwhile? Does it help to inform role-playing opportunities in a non-European based setting?
• What do you think dharma, or doing the right thingin a Vedic inspired setting should look like? What do you think would be taboo?
• Would providing more Shayakandi references in the villain’s description confuse or help?

For example, Devdanchar is known as a bashawithin his home city. A basha is a rich landowner as stated in his description, but the term also denotes something of a feudal lord, social superior and surrogate parent.

• Would providing separate encounter hooks for Shayakand natives and those born outside of Shayakand (elves for instance) be helpful?

As always, I look forward to any and all ideas and thoughts.