Grandia II X Nick Bardoni & Steve Warr (Imagine A World) [VIDEO CLIP MUSIC © GAME ONE] (2000)
#soundtrack #Grandia2 #Dreamcast #GameArts #2000 #NickBardoni #SteveWarr #ImagineAWorld #KPM #1996 #videogame #music #retrogaming #games #gaming #clip #videoclip #GAMEONE
#ImagineAWorld where the fate of the fallen is known. Every person's afterlife begins with a journey through a series of tunnels and mazes under the world, filled with monsters and dangers. The tunnels are not just raw caves, but a mix of natural caverns and seemingly crafted walls, doors and stairs. The spirits of the dead struggle through to find their way to the elysian fields on the far side, a land of paradise where the sun goes at night. The dangers faced by a spirit and the time they spend questing for the sun depends on the life that they lived - priests of each god claim that they have the knowledge of how one may spend the least time in the endless dark, and which sins will condemn a parishoner to endless searching.
But this purgatory is not quiet and still. The realm itself endlessly reaches for the mortal world. Tendrils of tunnels snake their way to the surface, allowing creatures of the afterworld to move into the mortal lands. When they reach the daylight, monsters spew forth. Where they emerge seems random, but many faiths claim that the sins of mortals draw them, and in turn, evil is drawn to the darkness. Left unchecked, the labyrinths grow in size and complexity, and the monsters within them grow in number and strength.
Each incursion that stretches to the mortal world has a key that anchors it to the world. It may be an object, or an entity that remains within the deepest levels, an apparatus that generates strange energy, or magic that endlessly strains at the borders between realms. If this keystone is destroyed or killed, the tunnels cease their endless branching and no further monsters can pass from the underworld into the light.
A newly erupted catacomb may be simple enough to be disrupted by a few brave peasants with hoes, but if a labyrinth has festered for years unseen, then the dangers within it may require a more martial approach. In some places, a king may call upon a knight champion to assemble companions, and prove their worth by closing the way. In others, groups of mercenaries travel the lands offering their services to clear these infestations and destroy the keystone.
Once a complex has been rendered static, some still regard it as remaining cursed and ill-omened. In other areas, especially cities and towns where space is at a premium, it may be ironically reused to become a sepulchre - some believe that by laying their dead within the caverns spawned by the afterlife, they speed their progress to and through the true mazes. Arcane researchers have been known to build towers over cleared incursions to attempt to understand their nature, or to draw upon any lingering energies for their own use. Superstitions swirl around those who repeatedly delve into the darkness - stories abound of a clinging association with the nderworld afflicting those who make their living clearing out the caverns.
#ImagineAWorld where years ago a calamity afflicted the surface world, threatening all life. The dwarven kingdoms opened their door to human refugees, and thousands streamed into the darkness, seeking safety. Winding corridors led them away from their apocalypse, deep into the earth.
Initially the refugees were treated generously - within the caverns shelter was easily found, and representatives were able to negotiate terms for organising food and other resources. Lights were made available, the soft white light banishing the dark.
As the months rolled on, the refugees found that this generosity had its limits. While they could offer money or goods in return, food and comforts flowed freely. But once the refugees had spent all they had, their hosts became less effusive. The quality of merchandise available decreased, and humans were told that they needed to spread out into smaller groups to free up spaces for other uses. The dwarven lanterns ran out of fuel, and people turned to cheaper and dimmer sources of light.
Many humans had skills that they were willing to use to earn whatever income was available, but the rigid dwarven society had strict rules around which clans were permitted to undertake particular employment and each clan defended its territory actively. The only employment that most humans were permitted to undertake was dangerous, or unpleasant, or badly paid.
Now five years later, the human refugees are spread through the underdark, living in unwanted corners. The dwarven leaders assure them that the surface is still unsafe - humans are welcome to check for themselves, but they will need to negotiate their own way there through clan territories.
Refugees struggle to earn enough to survive: not only are they paid very little for their efforts, but only one clan has the right to do business with human refugees, and they charge far more for food and other basics than the quality of their goods would suggest. Communities and families that initially were housed together have been spread apart as the dwarves insist that the humans move as they see fit. Sickness is common, and blamed on the dwarven food, or a lack of sun. Light is a luxury and humans often days go past without being able to see. When disputes occur with dwarven employers, humans are left with little recourse - the dwarven legal system is predicated on clan membership as a starting point for legal standing, and without the support of an existing clan member the courts will not even hear cases. Human crimes are dealt with by local authorities as they see fit - theft is especially punished harshly.
#ImagineAWorld #ttrpg where you gain power and strength by absorbing the essence of defeated and then slain enemies. Only through absorbing the energy released when you overcome and kill an opponent can you garner more strength and master more magic. The stronger the enemy, the more power is released when they are defeated. Death alone is not enough, it is the process of overcoming the enemy that links you to the other, and allows you to drain their energy for yourself.
Alliances form as groups unite to defend themselves, or to defeat an enemy that they could not overcome on their own; but these alliances can be fragile things, torn apart as the members turn on each other.
Assassins kill the helpless, or without battle, and an enemy’s power is lost to the world. Some do this to overcome an enemy, others seek a world where no mortal has such power.
Why is the world this way? Many cultures have stories of the world being other than this, in an earlier golden age. The details vary as to why things changed - it was a curse; it was the ascension of a new god; it was a magic gone wrong - but in each case the existing order was overthrown and the world remade.
Know, however, that in this world three orders are established. These are laboratores, bellatores and audentes. Laboratores are those that labour for our sustenance. Bellatores are those who protect our towns and defend our soil against the invading army. Audentes intercede for us against the Dark. Now the farmer labours for our food and the warrior must defend against our enemies and the adventurer must continually travel into darkness and fight against the unseen foes.
It is therefore a mighty fight the adventurers wage against the unseen devils who plot against us while people of this world fight with worldly weapons against earthly foes. Now earthly warriors should not compel the servants of all peoples to earthly warfare away from the spiritual war, because their service is greater, the unseen enemies are greater than the seen, and it is a great hurt that they forsake the service and divert to the worldly warfare that is not their concern.
- Ælfric of Eynsham c 1000
The three pillars of human society in the Middle Age were nobles, workers and adventurers. Workers were the solid base on which the nations relied. Farmers and crafters, their work was to provide for all. Nobles ruled the remaining human lands. Royal families and their vassals strove to ensure the strength of nations within the bounds of the lands of Man, and worked to make alliances with the hidden elven and dwarven kingdoms.
But it is the adventurers that draw our inner eye. Sworn to a service greater than that of an individual nation, the adventurers worked for the benefit of all peoples. Whether a crafter with the gift of arcane spark, or a noble’s fourth child trained to fight but too far removed from inheritance, anyone could pledge their lives to the noblest cause.
Without adventurers to travel into the lands that had been overrun by monsters, to retrieve resources or lost knowledge, human civilisation in our lands would have fallen to the Horde as it did in most places around the world.
#ImagineAWorld where most of the land is frozen, and the only people known are in the one village clinging to a tiny spit of land next to the sea. They live mostly through fishing, and eating seaweed and occasional seabirds. Old men tell of old men in their youth telling of a time when the world was not covered in ice, but there is no other open land days in any direction, and no one has seen anyone outside the village for generations.
On the other side of the nearby ridge is a glacier that ends on a high cliff. The glacier regularly pushes gravel and occasionally rocks off the cliff to pile on the short short strip of shore before the waves, storms and currents push them away from the cliff. Ice breaks off the end of the glacier, and smashes down onto the rocks - at times it is lifted up and the bergs drift away, other times the storms smash it into many pieces.
In the last year something changed. From underneath the glacier fell wondrous items, miraculously undamaged. At the start of winter, a dart of wood, with green leaves for fletching. Shortly after, a partly burnt set of antlers and a golden horn, delicately decorated and somehow not crushed by the ice river. A month ago, a glowing spear extended point first off the edge of the cliff. When it fell, it shattered a boulder and embedded in the ground. When anyone was willing to come close enough they could see its shaft was etched and inlaid with gold. Last week a large, short handled hammer fell from the cliff - when it hit the ground, all the nearby rocks rang like a bell.
It is treasonous to suggest otherwise, but the Emperor’s glorious armies were not what stopped the demon force from the north. In truth demons are not interested in such petty practicalities as supply lines, and eventually even cannibalism was unable to keep a significant force in a fighting fit state. The renowned line in the sand that the emperor established was in fact simply a high tide mark for the infernally driven forces.
Without a physical form, and presumably bound in some way to whatever rift was opened to bring them to our realm, the demons first possessed any people, then dangerous beasts and finally any creature they could use to ravage the world around them. Now the northlands are devoid of much more than the eternally silent forests.
Brave and foolish people cross the Emperor’s Line to find treasure or land of their own, but they almost always stray too far, and are eventually overcome by infernal influences. They charge slavering back to civilised lands to tear and rend anything they can reach before being stopped. While dangerous to those they encounter, these single beserkers are not ever able to group in any sort of meaningful force, and present no danger to the peoples south of the Line.
#ImagineAWorld where the gods are olympian, cruel and arbitrary. Kingdoms rise and fall at their whims. A goddess may reward a follower with wealth, and the next minute curse a devout and their family to endless suffering. Gods speak through their priests, and priests command kings, or use the threat of angering the gods to become rulers in their own right. Arguments between the gods lead to the destruction of whole peoples in pointless battles between deities.
Within the empires of the middle lands, some few rebels seek a way for mortals to find their own destiny free of the yoke of the gods. Some are born of unions between gods and mortals, and side with their mortal parents. Others are born with a connection to divinity that allows them to tap the power of a god against the deity’s will. Some have found echos of fallen gods and tap the last of the god’s life to power their own magics.
And outside the middle lands, in the barbarian wilds, the peoples fight against the gods’ armies to keep their freedom. Sorcerors command the elements, and shamans the spirits of the world. Great heroes arise from the adversity of bitter cold or the chaotic tropics. They grow so powerful that they may challenge the gods themselves - or enslave their own people, and ascend to become another cruel deity themselves.
#ImagineAWorld where adventurers are celebrities - rich, with access to magic and healing that can keep them healthy … potentially forever. They live in the soaring capital cities, where marvels are a daily occurrence - fresh water, luscious food, glittering entertainments are all provided through the spoils of their conquests and powered by the magics which they have mastered.
Arenas spot the city where opposing warriors fight each other, or captured monsters, while spectators cheer on their favourites. Leagues of lesser adventurers compete for the favours of the most powerful, to provide equipment and exposure so as to increase their own power.
When the famous travel out into the worlds infinite, it is with pomp and public spectacle. A renowned enough party moves out of the city as part of a parade, with music and dancers, exotic beasts and cheering crowds. Once they are free of the city, their travels and travails are magically recorded, to be shared with fans and sponsors on their return.
Those starting out cannot afford such luxuries, but return with their own stories, and hope with the telling they will build their own following. Professional story tellers, or illusionists who can depict the tales are often employed to entertain those who might be inclined to share a coin.
Even for those not called to adventure, living within the walls of the cities and in the shadow of the powerful, working for those that rule, gives them access to a life of comparative ease.
Outside these citadels of light, for the majority of people, life is squallor and deprivation. Slums cluster the edge of the cities, full of those hoping to make their way through the gates. Towns hope to provide services for visiting adventurers and so build their own riches. Villages dot the land, in the middle of fields or forests, and the inhabitants scrape a living from farms, hoping to not attract the attention of the hordes of monsters that build in the wilderness. The less fortunate - often prisoners or debtors - work mines or quarries, spending their lives to yield the raw materials for the cities.
#ImagineAWorld where a thousand years ago, an empire of light ruled over a Golden Age. Bright cities stood upon the face of the world, and great achievements raised civilisation to the highest point it has ever seen.
But the powers that were tapped to achieve these heights were ultimately unstable. A single accident at the wrong time, and in the wrong place, and chaos was released across the world. People, animals and plants of the world were twisted and warped, and even the landscape was tortured into new shapes. Monsters swarmed and cities fell. Animals no longer bred true, and many of the children of the empire were born touched by chaos.
For a long time, what few people survived lived hand to mouth. Many returned to a nomadic life, following wild animals, and avoiding the fallen cities. Even this life was not safe - at times hordes of creatures would rampage across the landscape, destroying all in their path until they fell upon one another.
In time, small homesteads that did survive became small hamlets; hamlets became villages and some villages became towns. Most began well removed from the ancient sites, but some clung to the edges of ancient cities - despite the risks of lingering chaos, the rewards of knowledge or technology to be pulled from the ruins were bright enough to tempt fate.
Wealth, fame, power, knowledge - those willing to explore the ancient’s fallen cities were usually rewarded with death instead, but a lucky few managed to find more. A thousand years after the fall, all of the easily looted sites have been picked clean. Some are lost to memory, hidden in fell lands or buried by the catastrophe. Others are well known, but still swirl with the churning power that ended the world, ready to sweep away anyone that intrudes.
Johnny Game Over aka JGO
Damien (TIG BUSINESS)