While this blog has been dedicated to The Nerdy Things in Life, I feel that I haven’t really used this space to honestly and truly geek out. That changes here and now.
A little while ago I touched base with an old friend, Brian. He recently started a blog called The City State of Balic (which you can see a link from to you right if you look for it) which is primarily dedicated to the nerdiest of nerdy endeavors, Dungeons & Dragons. He sent me an e-mail a little over a week ago with an idea. He and I would join together and make a D&D setting, each taking part time responsibility for things. So far it has been really fun reconnected with that nerdy side of my life, and an old friend. While we are still in the draft stages, the setting got off to a good start. We both included some “creative” sections to lay a bit of the land for our planet which I’ll include here…
Here’s Brian’s…
Grajeb stood on the deck of the Hobbled Griffin, picking his teeth with a sliver of unicorn bone. His green face scrunched-up for a half second and then he spat over the the side of the ship, watching the coin-sized droplet of saliva glisten in the light as it sailed down, down, forever down. Then he tossed the sliver into his mouth, crunched it between his molars, and sucked the bitter-tasting marrow down his throat – unicorn bone was supposed to be good for fertility, and his third wife had been nagging about a seventh child.
The goblin captain turned from the blue sky, eyes narrow as he turned toward his first mate. Pekrovak was a hobgoblin, and he was sleeping with Grajeb’s sister (though he thought the wily goblin wasn’t on to him), but he could plot a course through the skies better than any other man, woman, or miscellaneous Grajeb had ever met.
“We need to pick up the pace.” Pekrovak made a face, shrugging.
“I don’t think we can work the humans much harder without killing some of them.” Grajeb stretched his lips tightly against his crooked, yellow teeth – left hand idly tugging on the hoop of gold dangling from his ear, an old nervous tick that ruined him whenever he played cards.
“Do it. If we’re late with this shipment, Pasha Radin will have my head and yours – and that’s one efreet whose good side I want to stay on.” Grajeb grunted, waving a hand dismissively. “We’ll replace the slaves at port – dwarves next time. They work harder.” Pekrovak nodded and left his captain in peace.
Grajeb wandered back to the railing, looking down over the side – staring down to where the ocean wavered back and forth, more than sixty miles below. He slid a hand into his pocket, fished out another sliver of unicorn bone, and began sucking on it idly while musing on baby names.
Half an hour later a human slave collapsed dead in the engine room, blood streaming from his nose and eyes, body twitching with violent convulsions. No one besides Pekrovak noticed.
And now mine…
SHE tried to stay out of it. That clearly was not an option. SHE was by all accounts a pacifist, and in times of war that is a virtue worthy of the highest punishment.
We don’t know how the war started, or exactly how long it lasted, all we know is that everyone died in the battles. Everyone except for the pacifist, who received a much worse punishment. For HER spirit was trapped inside a giant shell.
As the war ragged on without HER, things got much worse. Eventually in the climactic battle between all of the gods, with the universe hanging in the balance, a catastrophe occurred. It is not know how it started, or what exactly it was. But all we know is that all of the remaining gods were killed in this moment. The souls and bodies of the gods floated about through the multiverse, with some parts of them landing on the shell that SHE was trapped within.
Many of these God Shards, as we now call them, turned into the dwarves, orcs, dragons, humans, and other intelligent races. Some provided important features to the world like the clouds, seas or arcane powers. Many are still to be discovered.
SHE spent eons struggling to escape HER shell to no avail. In recent millennia SHE has stopped struggling. This has allowed us to thrive and prosper on HER shell. However, signs from the wise men have indicated that perhaps SHE has been docile because she is dying.
It is uncertain at the time of writing if this is true or not. If it is, we have no idea how to save HER. Perhaps an undiscovered God Shard can provide us with the answer.
– Vanyyl, sourced by a God Shard of Knowledge.
So here we have our two ideas, one of a world overrun by slavers and pseudo-technology, and one of a world that is in fact a dying god, covered in the powerful corpses of fallen deities. Surprisingly, it has come together very well thus far.
If you are interested in seeing how this develops, be sure to check it out here. I know I’ll be following it 
Until next time,
G
[...] Since I first introduced you all to the concept of FuckedWorld, Glen has posted his own initial thoughts over on his blog, and the emails have been both fast and furious between myself and the G-Unit [...]