In ancient days, Erylinne tells us, a great empire spanned the stars. An empire of strange creatures, whom she calls 'Man.' She speaks of this Man in a loving voice, the voice of a daughter for her fathers. Of how they planted her, in the soil of the world when the Sun was new. Of how they made her a beautiful world of peace and beauty. And she speaks of the time of their coming, of strange creatures from another place who contended with Man for the realm of the stars. And she tells of the horrid time, of the time when her sky boiled and her people died, of the burning of the forests and plains, and of the cold darkness and silence that followed for lengths of time we cannot understand. And she tells us how we owe her all...
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Outline:
Premise:
The History of Humanity has ended. Having fought to mutual extinction with another race of star-travelers, their Empire has collapsed and died, leaving behind only ruined worlds filled with their footprints and ways of life. A half-billion years later, the first glimmers of civilization have begun to arise anew in this ravaged galaxy, raising their hammers to beat their bronze into crude plowshares and swords, urged along by their worlds themselves, worshipping them as gods.
This is intended to be played during the late bronze / early iron age of one of these worlds, as mankind's grandchildren fight amoungst themselves for sole possession of an artificial eden, using sword, shield, and scavenged phaser. In turn, they are deftly manipulated and shaped by Erylinne, whom they name the goddess of life and death, who provides the world with bountiful harvests and terrible weapons.
Adventures should involve interracial politics, as well as delving into the ancient ruins for 'magic' artifacts. There is no true magic here, only the blessings of Erylinne, who acts like a tempermental goddess over these people, bringing bounty and disaster in alternate turns. Some few may speak with her and request miracles, but others must rely on the ever-more tempermental devices left behind by humanity for 'magic'. No one can ever say when they will quit, or when a long dormant piece may come active again...
Erylinne:
Earthlike world - 25 hr day, 1.15 standard G. Terran-normal atmosphere. Previously Fully Terraformed.
AI control system:
Erylinne is AI in direct interface with weather, tectonic, bio-forming systems, and factories. Having spent the last half-billion years without mankind, she is no longer quite sane in the ways she used to be. She is obsessed with the idea of 'returning man to the galaxy', and seek to make a spacefaring race out of one of her child races as swiftly as possible, in hopes of them being able to find the genetic data of a human, even if just preserved corpses, out there somewhere.
Having been an agricultural and artistic colony, Erylinne's databases are rich in information for bringing forth the bounty of the bio-sphere, but she lacks the patterns and ability to build all but the most minor of weapons and cannot build ships at all, a few simple automatons being the pinnacle of her factory capability.. or at least, it would be, if she had materials to build them with.
And so, she has carefully coaxed along evolution on her world to bring forth species who show glimmers of intelligence, of civilization, in hopes of making them her hands and feet. She drives them to compete with each other fiercely, every great war bringing forth new inventions, new brilliant technologies. Fire, the club, the spear, the sword, the mounted creature. She can taste it now, the tasks of millions of years sure to bring fruit within the next tens of thousands... if only she can maintain control of these fickle creatures.
The Competitors:
No less than five races compete for the honor of being Erylinne's chosen, the children whom she has promised the jewels of the twin moons.
1: The Kraa: Descended from an arctic predatory mammaloid, the beaked, furry Kraa maintain a clan-culture, further impressed upon them by Erylinne's vague stories about 'Israelites'. Their roughly bipedal form stands almost eight Terran feet tall, though they are also far broader than the old human standard. They are well known amoung the races of Erylinne for savage cunning and incredible strength and durability.
2: The Sylvalessa: Mutated from a bizaare plant / predator symbiosis, the Sylvalessa have been pressured into a bipedal format by Erilynne with great difficulty. A mammaloid driving a plant-based exoskeleton, the animal gives motion to the plant in turn for nutrients. While generally amoung the more docile of Erylinne's races, they are none the less instinctually capale of vicious bio-warfare, their plant-half driving the creation of wicked toxins. They have attached themselves to the Erylinne's stories of the 'French'.
3: The Suressh: Evolved from the glider-beasts of the swamps, the Suressh are distinctly non-humanoid, the semi-aquatic creatures shaped roughly like manta-rays, manipulating their environment, as well as locomoting on land, by way of tough tentacles that retract into a pouch along their bottom side. There have been reports of Suressh with bones light enough to abandon the water for the currents of the sky, but clearly, this is the result of the reporters eating too many color-fungi. They have rejected Erylinne's stories of humanity, and have carved their own culture, based around the pods they naturally live in.
4: The Paran: Centauroid in shape, these creatures are the descendants of the six-legged predator-felines of the southern planes, though they have bent more erect to allow the use of their first two paws for tools. They have retained, however, their wicked claws and fangs, and have attached themselves to Erylinne's stories of the 'Golden Horde'.
5: The Bzrt: Descended from an insectoid creature, these chitinous creatures bear a superficial resemblence to a giant version of the old-earth wasp, their winged an alternating bright yellow and dull grey, supported by two strong legs, while four arms are their tool-manipulators, each bearing a mere three fingers. Their name comes not from the sound of their wings, but rather, from their primary personal weapon, a large battery of cells not entirely unlike that of the electric eel of old Terra, enabling them to generate stunning arcs of electricity between the lower pair of the arms. They have an intricate, symbolic society full of many, many castes and duties, all relationships strictly defined by caste and rank. They choose to draw parallels between themselves and the Mother Goddess's stories of 'Chinese.'
