Adventuring in the world of Ainerêve
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Ainerêve is a fantasy world, shaped by the dreams of Earth: it has normal lands and peoples, as well as mythical monsters, fantastic races, working magic, and otherworldly influences. It is made up of settled lands (stable areas) where most adventuring takes place, and unsettled lands (areas in flux), which are more dreamlike, and provide the means for interdimensional jaunts. Some of the lands were established in the past by folk magically transported from Earth.
Player characters are assumed to be natives of or visitors to the Eldritch Realms, a group of settled lands in Ainerêve. To the north is Dalmavand, a proudly independent kingdom, culturally an amalgam of Norse and later medieval society, shaped by Nordic myth. Its hardiest heroes are descendants of the Varangian guard. Centrally situated is the Forest of Meath, a place defined by Celtic mythology, whose native shee clash with Persian peris and deevs. To the south lies Psarmorum, peopled by a lost company of Templar Knights and pilgrims tricked into worshipping a demon. Westerly lies Maedoen, a kingdom of pre-Roman Celtic/Welsh culture, but changed under the influence of the shee.
The town of Crossroads is situated in Maedoen, on the edge of the Forest of Meath. It functions as a kind of neutral city state. It is an active trading center, and a natural meeting place for travelers, both from the Eldritch Realms and further afield, since it contains the Equinox Portals, magical gates to other realms. It also features the Guardians’ Guild (an explorers and adventurers group), a Mages’ College, and many collegial inns and taverns. Player characters of any kind and background can be easily introduced to the setting, a perfect springboard for those in search of adventure.
Ainerêve
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
— [ The Tempest (IV i) ]
Ainerêve is a dream world, a shadow realm, an alternative dimension. It coexists undetectably with the Earth that we all know so well. Its essence may be primordial chaos, raw protomatter left over from the creation of the universe, or perhaps the aether of the ancients: the fifth element, breathed by the gods and forming the soul. Whatever its basis, its substance is mainly shaped by thought and takes local form from the beliefs and imaginings of humankind. Ainerêve is thus something like a phantom Earth — it has lands and seas, mountains and rivers, sun and moon — but reality there is unstable, and areas of normality are set like mosaic pieces in a changeable flux of dream and caprice.
In general terms, Ainerêve is made up of settled lands and unsettled lands. These terms are in common use, in one form or another, across the dream world. Settled lands are stable regions, internally consistent and relatively static. Physical phenomena and those things that depend on them (such as travel) are normal. There can be weird things in settled lands, things that no person on Earth ever saw, but even the weird things there are somewhat predictable, being folk beliefs and so on conceived of on Earth.
Ainerêve’s primordial protomatter has a receptive intelligence, literally reifying the thoughts and dreams it responds to. It fills in the gaps from the Earth it swirls through, so when a forest or herd of animals is imagined, each tree and beast is real and indistinguishable from its earthly model. Extraordinary creatures are extrapolated from this basis, so they are mostly real, and for instance, a shee (one of the fairy folk) can mate with a human. Sentient beings have free will and, in some cases, their own souls. In short, things are pretty much like a fantastic Earth. Walk down the road to the baker, and he’ll always be there. Houses don’t get infected with some sap’s random thought of Baba Yaga and walk away on their owners. It is beliefs, solid and lasting, that create settled lands. Over time, as a mythology or religion refuses to fade on Earth, it creates a place in the infinitely malleable Ainerêve. That is where settled lands come from.
Unsettled lands are lands unclaimed by any belief, and they are ruled by dreams. Whereas lasting faith or consistently-held ideas forge a settled land and stabilize it, the quicksilver dreams of humanity keep the unsettled lands in constant flux. Far stranger things happen or live there than in the settled lands, and they are far more dangerous. A location in the unsettled lands can be concrete and real in appearance (even if thematic), dreamlike, or completely abstract, and may sometimes change with the ideas of the moment. Love may create a blushing pink-and-red area with soft curves and some razor-sharp angles. Cult beliefs might focus on the cult leader and vague savior figures, perhaps with the cold, blue and white backdrops of unswerving dedication.
Proximity in Ainerêve is dictated largely by conceptual nearness. That is, two places are only as close as the dreams or beliefs that color and shape those locations. To travel from an unsettled place based on fear of death to one based on fear of the dark is a short jaunt — the emotions are the same, and both are shadowy unknowns. Going from the idea of a circus, complete with spun sugar and clowns, to a wealthy fantasy kingdom requires a longer trip. Worse, in the unsettled lands you can never be sure if going the same direction means you’ll get to the same place each time.
Ainerêve’s definition of nearness means that the settled lands, defined largely by a single belief system, surround themselves with related concepts. Travel out of a Buddhist settled land, and the unsettled lands will be more Hindu or Taoist than Christian or Norse. Still, it usually takes a significant period of traveling through unsettled lands to reach a settled land not one’s own. Leaving the Buddhist region, one is likely to come across pseudo-Buddhist unsettled ideas first. Buddhist-like religions, ideas of peace, reincarnation, vegetarianism, and other Buddhist precepts will abound. Next might come admixtures of Buddhist and Hindu concepts, and then near-Hindu beliefs before the traveler finally reaches a Hindu-flavored settled land.
The change is very gradual. Settled lands exert their stabilizing influence over a significant area. Leaving one means that a traveler will experience a slow change in general wilderness décor as one belief melds into another, and from the various ideas that have seeped in over the years. It is only far from any settled land that a person finds places that change as he watches and where a misstep can mean a thousand years of pain. There are not settled lands for every religion and belief, or Ainerêve would all be settled lands, with a slow change in nature as one traveled across it. Instead, the criterion for becoming a settled land is the sort of imaginative energy that resonates with the realm.
One can navigate unsettled lands in two ways: in the educated manner, following the chain of concepts from one settled land to another; and by conventional (settled land) navigation, which may function as intended, but usually depends more on instinct. In the end, both are equally effective — or ineffective. Skilled travelers of unsettled lands are very rare, and usually mix the two methods to find their way in and out more than once.
Beyond conceptual similarity, there is one other thing that can bring two places together in the dream world. Repeated and shared experience can solidify parts of the unsettled lands to make a reliable (if not necessarily safe) path between two unalike locations. This happens only rarely.
Inhabitants come to Ainerêve from two sources: Earth dreams and beliefs, and Earth itself. The first is more common, as Victorian-age audiences dream a Dracula into existence or early American settlers have nightmares about the fiendish red Indians. Entire unsettled lands have been populated this way, though the inhabitants generally fade over time and disappear unless reinforced with belief. People from Earth occasionally travel to the dream world through a form of unknown magic. Once there, most end up making their lives there and beginning a new society in whatever settled land they can find. Usually, people from Earth only find their way through to settled lands to which they are close — those based on beliefs similar to theirs.