Welcome to Carceres
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Carceres is the name of the planet where my current Dungeons & Dragons campaigns take place. Below are some basic statistics about the world itself. Carcer from Latin translates in English to mean cell, prison or dungeon.
Planet measurements and information:
- Planet’s diameter at the equator: 88,700 miles (11 times that of earth)
- Length of one year: 4329 days per year /1082.25 days per season
*Realistically this planet would not be able to sustain life because it’s too large and would actually become a gas giant, liquid would not be able to be retained and there would not be any actual oceans. This is of course fantasy though. The planet Carceres is said to have been created by the original Gods who have long abandoned the world.
History of the World
The world of Carceres was shaped from the chaos of the Primordial Plane, by the original Gods of the Universe. The Primordial Plane is an area in the Multiverse that contains many of the elements found on the Prime Plane. Elements such as Fire, Water, Air and Earth were used to create the world of Carceres, however there are other elements found in the Primordial Plane that were not used in its creation. The elements found in Carceres were used because they were able to create a uniform balance that allows for growth. Since the creation of this world, much has happened. The creator Gods disappeared from the world long ago, no one alive knows their names. In their absence a single deserving warrior named Ionia Ostium was left to guard the world, she alone was elevated to the status of Immortality and herself became the first Immortal that was birthed on Carceres. Through Ionia, other powerful adventurers and creatures were able to seek out the tests of Immortality. The pathways leading to Immortality were onerous, dark, destructive and near impossible for even the most capable adventurers. The few who were able to surpass the difficulties of the path were elevated to the ranks of Immortality, thereafter ruling over certain powers in the world.
In the modern world, Carceres is governed by many Immortals. Each Immortal is part of a sphere that governs balance in the world. The Immortals are worshiped as deities and grant power as deities do. Though they are not themselves Gods, they have power that could challenge one and they could be considered Demigods. The Immortals found that once they achieved their status that matters pertinent to the entire Multiverse fell into their lap. For all life to be retained, a balance of all of the existing spheres within it must be maintained. Furthermore they found that change throughout this balance was to be a constant. War developed amidst the Immortals because of this. The Immortals waged war on each other for various reasons. Some Immortals wanted too much power, while others wanted to create a utopian plateau. Ionia was uninvolved in most of the wars for reasons that were not at first apparent. Later, a Chaotic Evil Immortal named Semiazas came to power. When Semiazas took power in his plane, he forged a large army and harvested power never seen by the other Immortals. Ionia warned Semiazas that he was infringing upon the balance of the Multiverse, but of course he did not listen. He eventually came to the conclusion that he would be able to overthrow Ionia, but failed. Ionia's power was too great and she shattered Semiazas' essence. A former moon that coincided with Semiazas' plane crumbled in the sky, becoming an astroid field in space. Semiazas plunged to Carceres and fell into the sea. His essence, having been shattered, still retained its existence (after all, he was still Immortal even in defeat). Every bit of power that Semiazas held became disjointed, from his own plane and his soul to his many followers. The entire energy of all of this became an eternal storm, a tempest that lurks in a specific region of the East South seas. It was clear to the other Immortals what Ionia's role was after that; she was there to make sure that nothing created an imbalance, Ionia only watched otherwise.
There was debate that Ionia was, herself, an Immortal with the true intentions of Neutrality in mind. Oddly, it turned out that was not the case. Her own intentions and desires, what ever they were, seemed to be separated from her inherited job. She was found to be good and to hate evil altogether, yet she allowed Evil to flourish as it did. All other Immortals were not like this, nor did they ever change. Even in the modern world, all of the Immortals retain complete allegiance to their own Alignments, Spheres of power and personal desires, as it was what drove them to achieve their status. The people and creatures of the Prime Plane end up in the middle of the Immortals' conflicts much of the time, as the Immortals play patrons to them. The people of the Prime Plane, the normal world, are not always involved with the Immortals, however. Some create their own path to follow that has nothing to do with the powers of the Universe surrounding them. Everyone has their own desires and goals. There is no telling what you'll run into during your travels in Carceres, the world is too large to know it all.
The Known World
Carceres is such a vast planet that it is nearly impossible for most civilizations to know even one tenth of what other things in the world exist. Various levels of technology could be said to exist in one area of the world that have no effect on most (or in some cases even all) of the other civilizations. One civilization may believe that they are the only civilization in the entire world; another may believe that the world is flat or has no end (or both). A civilization may rise and fall and never be heard of only to be stumbled upon later by some new establishment in the world long after everything in that civilization took place. It’s a good game world to be able to use for multiple campaign settings.
Generally speaking, the average level of technology that exists in this game world is comparable to medieval England (without the printing press or gun powder), with higher and lower end technologies occurring in various civilizations (depending upon natural and even magical resources). The higher the level of technology from the average, the less likely it is to exist. Magic is more prevalent than technology in Carceres.
Races such as Dragons, Giants and Elves, that live longer or are larger in size than average humanoids, prosper in Carceres. Humans and other humanoid races that do not live long, here, are looked upon as lesser from races that are more comfortable with a larger planet and more time. Humans still maintain much power and run kingdoms just the same as the other races do; the taunting from other races is superficial. Some continents are entirely inhabited by Giants or Dragons. Half Giants, Half Orcs and Muls (Half Dwarf) are also common in this world, though in such a vast world it is hard to know all the races and creatures that could exist.
Seasons
Since each year in the game is much longer than a year on Earth (approximately 11.86 earth years to one Carceres year), each season is divided up accordingly. Approximately 1,082 days (just about 3 Earth years) are the length of each season in Carceres. Because of this, each campaign can (and most likely does) take place within a single season. The players of the game choose the season of each campaign when it begins, unless the game they begin playing is during a specific time (i.e. the players are playing a side campaign as enemies against players in a campaign that has already been established).
Each season creates certain conditions, such as a certain type of monster encountered, certain available secrets to be found, specific areas that can be explored and so on. The season that is chosen for a given campaign can make certain things accessible that are exclusive to its weather conditions and environmental effects. Powerful individuals in the world try to take advantage of this system at times; perhaps hiding magic artifacts in water caves beneath a lake during the end of Fall, so that when Winter freezes the lake it will be better concealed and harder to find for that long period of time.
Age is of course recorded differently by all of the races in the world. Most races with enough awareness and intelligence record years as they actually are in Carceres and apply age accordingly. Races that cannot live longer than a year are typically assigned seasonal rates for age.
The world of Carceres, again, is so vast that it is near impossible to know all of the details of how all of the intelligent species handle using information such as age categorization. For the most part consider that most intelligent races do use the actual representative system.
For simplicity in game mechanics, when a PC’s age is recorded, it is recorded with his actual Carceres age followed by his age, as it would be on Earth in parentheses, i.e.: 2 years (23.7 normal years). (Age=Normal [Earth] Age / 11.86) Humans in Carceres seem to count their age in seasons lived, thus making them 3 years old (by our Earth years) per season they have lived. A human who says they are 10 seasons old, is 30 Earth years.
