World Shell Overview

Subject: World Shell Overview Thu Jan 17, 2008 4:19 pm

World Shell Overview

The following posts feature descriptions of the World Shells based on common knowledge.

Subject: Re: World Shell Overview Wed Jul 16, 2008 3:24 pm

Descended from inhabitants of the lower World Shells, the humanoid denizens of the Outer Sphere are much more long-limbed and slender than their more "earthbound" counterparts. Explorers occasionally have the privilege of viewing their great metropoli from afar as they trade goods with these distant, xenophobic peoples. Awed merchants tell of great city-kingdoms, full of great wonders and powered by magical and technological splendors beyond description. Their power is rivaled their artistry, and their martial conquests against each other are said to be both graceful and fierce. If the decadently exalted living on Orbitus have one downfall in the eyes of the traders, it is that they are too prideful and have a distant, seemingly cold attitude. But that is what one would expect when many of them are (literally) at the top of the world and look down upon their lower-Shelled (and in their minds, inferior) brethren with contempt and disgust.

Subject: Re: World Shell Overview Wed Jul 16, 2008 3:29 pm

Ravaged by extreme heat and cold across its various regions, almost half of the primary continent of Vintara is constantly plagued by burning sandstorms, and the other by torrential ice. Where the thin, erratic borders marking the end of both extreme elements lie boast nothing short of dreamer's paradises, oases in the wastelands, wedged between dunes and tundra. It is not surprising that the traders who have braved the sandstorms from hell and the ice storms from the coldness of deep space return to tell of powerful cities built from all kinds of materials thriving in the many areas of Fiera-Crystalla amid a seemingly dead land.

Inhabitants of Fiera-Crystalla are extremely diverse, more like the peoples of the lower Shells, and for many of them, a sign of true courage and strength is the ability to endure or even enjoy their hostile environs... a deadly homeland full of white-hot sand and razor-sharp ice.

Subject: Re: World Shell Overview Wed Jul 16, 2008 3:31 pm

The name of this World Shell originally came from "aquatic terrain," as christened by the scientific community. However, all but the hardiest travellers get seasick and depart on every trip to the Great Ocean, leaving behind those with the toughest sails (or fins and gills) to the endless blue yonder. Travellers tell wondrous stories of infinite blue sky and sea, dotted only by the Shells above, almost mystical creatures unimaginable by even the most brilliant minds of the world, and underwater cities entirely of pearl and glass inhabited by people who breathe the very water surrounding them. Greedy prospectors who take great pains for unscupulous purposes have often been met not with the warm welcome of innocent seafolk, but the unspeakable terrors of the deep. Everyone who has been there knows that they are there, lurking in the depths of the sea, but no one living has ever returned alive to describe their mysterious, monstrous power. Yet.

Subject: Re: World Shell Overview Wed Jul 16, 2008 3:33 pm

As surely as Novemterra is a garden among the dead grasses of the universe, so then is the fourth World Shell truly a rose among the thorns of her sister Shells. Featuring untamed natural beauty so stunning as to blind, cool breezes which sway giant, skyscraper-tall forests, massive crystal blue waterfalls descending upon the land from the World Ocean above, and a barrage of pleasureful colors, textures and smells to please all senses, the various continents of Gaia (of which Gaieon is the largest) fully deserve the honor to be known as the Creator's Gardens by any experienced traveller. However, like the beautiful rose for which it is likened to, those who tread without care in its environment are bound to be pricked and cut by its thorns. It is said that when outsiders enrage the gardens with selfish acts, what emerges from the deepest parts of the endless woods culminate in an encounter of the third kind with pure botanical nightmares. Many of the Garden's creatures both mundane and majestic have been sighted and interacted with, but it does not make the guardians of Gaia any less mysterious or frightening, even to the colonies of civilization established in its less wild regions.

Subject: Re: World Shell Overview Wed Jul 16, 2008 3:34 pm

Appropriately named, Miderth is the fifth World Shell of Novemterra and in the middle of all Shells with respect to the Core. It is here on the largest landmass, composed of the continents of Alishar and Lecrosta (connected by the Passage of Hope), that many of the more well-known denizens of this world make their home. A changing climate throughout the land masses capable of sustaining a varied repertoire of life. Creatures from as small as specks of dust to as large as entire villages roam the land in pursual their own unique endeavors.

Being the most temperate and spacious of all the World Shells, it is no surprise that Miderth supports the largest population of refined civilization on Novemterra. Being the most varied in sophisticated species and environments, it is also not a shock that frequent conflicts arise with neighboring territories, kingdoms and even across the floating continents.

Subject: Re: World Shell Overview Wed Jul 16, 2008 3:39 pm

A wise and powerful old master once said, "you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." Though he was not describing this land, these words aptly describe the sixth World Shell known as the World Bazaar. Relatively small compared to the other World Shells, Zenith is primarily a belt-like strip of land running along Novemterra's equator, were it located at the outer edge of the land masses. Being where it is, under many Shells, the land is often bathed in a dark and menacing twilight, and the majority of the World Bazaar population mirrors that geology with equivalent darkness. Good-hearted by firm citizens from other Shells are drawn to the squalor of the World Bazaar in an attempt to inspire some kind of change in its current conditions.

With a formidable black market of unimaginable proportions constantly exchanged between the most powerful organizations almost from day to day to complement the lucrative public mercantile businesses, traders and merchants and all kinds of folk from most of the other Shells are always drawn to the World Bazaar, a land where one's purse, prices and throat are all equally likely to be cut with disturbing regularity.

Subject: Re: World Shell Overview Wed Jul 16, 2008 3:43 pm

Distant enough from the World Shells above it as not to be completely blocked out by the sun, yet with enough Shells above it to cast it in a permanent shade at best, the eternal dusk of Impetus appears to be descending quickly into the night with the onslaught of powerful nations fueled by the mineral-rich lands of Novemterra's eighth Shell to drive their enemies into the bitter dust. What the nations originally fought over is now unknown to most, but it is evident to commoners from the other Shells that reason for having widescale conflict is no longer as important as the Nations' continued ability to wage perpetual warfare. With these unusual circumstances spurring creative and imaginative minds towards hostile thinking and cruel methodology, Impetus boasts some of the greatest and most impressive technology known to Novemterra. However, even such technology is next to worthless when the best of it appears the very next day as the worst of the world's trash.

Subject: Re: World Shell Overview Wed Jul 16, 2008 3:45 pm

Poets recite and bards sing of an ancient curse placed upon this land by the avatars left standing after the catastrophic War of Ultimates. As later travels to this world have confirmed, this curse is not one of death and decay, but of everlasting darkness. Without the flora and fauna - and denizens - of Dark Star, the entire World Shell would be plummeted in eternal night. Of course, this makes for an extremely wondrous and mystical experience for one not acquainted to the Scourge of the Planet's alien surface terrain. Unfortunately, the wonders of biological illumination are lost to the very native inhabitants of Dark Star, who are reported (when occasionally seen) by the few miners and explorers there to have no optical senses of any kind. The eighth World Shell has not yet been known to support many indigenously developed civilizations, and consists of entire oceans of fungal colonies that are as beautiful as they are deadly, mined for their potent resources. But what true horrors does the Scourge of the Planet really hold? The merchants and miners may be holding back something out of fear...

Subject: Re: World Shell Overview Wed Jul 16, 2008 3:45 pm

World Shell Nine: Omega Ragnarok, the Ancient Surface

Few known souls have ever wandered onto the milennia-old, solid but molten Surface of the Core, and no brave soul has ever stayed longer than was willed by whatever insane premonition drove him there in the first place. One of the most hardy and steel-gutted warriors who actually returned to his prosperous homeland after exploring the Ninth Shell was reputed to have stated, "the land is naught but melting ash and stone... the very air itself is not air but a deadly fume of poisonous vapor." It is said that the Ancient Surface is not actually the true Surface of the Core, but rather, that the actual surface is just below this thin, molten Shell. However, this claim remains unsubstantiated, and further, the tales of creatures of searing flame to terrible to describe guarding the very home of the Creator begs the question of such tellers' honesty.

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