Nuum background

Discuss the various peoples and cultures of the land.
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Rastaban
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Nuum background

Post by Rastaban »

I would love to know more about Nuum! I know some about them from my research on CLOK, but even there the information was missing some points. Government, history. Who is the national leader? How common is magic and magic users? I wonder about social structure as well. We know about people seen useless to society can become slaves to be made useful, we know magic users are powerful upper class, but are there other upper class that don't use magic? Is the ruler of Nuum always a magic user? How do they view the gods and immortals of their own and other cultures now that they have risen their own people to occult power and are abandoning their gods?

Any information would be appreciated!
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Rias
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Re: Nuum background

Post by Rias »

I can go into more detail later when I put up the updated wiki article, but for now ... (and some of this is still a bit rough in my mind and subject to tweaking, so wait for the official wiki page before you go nuts with any of this)

Nuum is an empire, consisting of a number of desert city-states that are fairly autonomous but of course must all answer and pay tribute to the emperor/empress (I still need to come up with a better term than "emperor/empress" though - note to self). The leaders (again, need a better term) of the individual city-states aren't always channelers, but the emperor/ress always is, and must be of exceptional capability. The ruling line is normally hereditary, but if the family fails to produce an heir of sufficient occult prowess, it is considered a cosmic sign of sorts that that family's dynasty is at an end, and the most powerful channeler among the noble class will take their place. Naturally, this creates some interesting political plots and schemes, but the ruling family being extremely powerful channelers by definition tends to ensure they're not likely to be messed with. The noble class channelers will often spend as much time as possible showing off their occult ability, should there ever be an opportunity for them to be considered as the new ruler of Nuum if the previous line fails.

There have been civil wars in Nuum, causing the imperial seat to shift cities a few times. The original capital has long been lost and impossible to find (not yet ready to commit to the commonly-accepted explanation on that one, still hammering that lore).

While I won't go into too much detail now, Nuum has an interesting founding story. The legend tells of an eastern nomadic tribe which produced a madwoman by the name of Nu, who constantly spoke of hearing voices that others could not. She would enter strange trances in which she babbled and gibbered incomprehensibly. Considered a burden on her people, there was little effort to stop her the night she ran off into the barren wastes of the great nearby desert to seek the speakers she constantly heard in her mind. Only one followed her: a young man whose heart she had won despite her apparent madness.

Months passed, and Nu and her diligent suitor were considered long dead, claimed by the unforgiving desert like so many others. So it was that her tribe was surprised to see Nu's suitor return and find them, and what was more, he was able to perform incredible occult feats that had never been heard of before. It took little effort for him to convince many others to follow him back out across the desert and to the paradisiacal City of the Gods that his beloved Nu had discovered, she being the only one able to hear - and willing to follow - the beckoning of the immortals. There, the blessings and knowledge of the gods would be shared, and mortals would be empowered and enlightened.

Nuum produces some extremely powerful occult channelers, but their secrets are well-guarded, and shared very selectively. That is to say: Nuum has "many" channelers relatively speaking when considering other nations, but they're still fairly rare overall. There aren't throngs of them in the streets, or open colleges teaching arcana to the public. Occult secrets are very much privileged information even in Nuum.

That's it for now. Hopefully that tides you over until I can write up the official document and put it on the wiki.
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Rias
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Re: Nuum background

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P.S. While I say occult secrets are privileged even in Nuum, they do tend to share some of the lesser occult arts with those lower on the social status ladder, in order to let the lessers handle the grunt work of arcane systems and frameworks they have going in their cities. The high and mighty can't be bothered to go tend such mundane matters as maintaining arcane lamps and things like that. So, player character concepts of channelers from Nuum are believable without them making claims of being high nobility. Heck, it'd be believable that a character ended up in the Lost Lands because they were getting a bit too good at channeling despite their lower social status and had to flee Nuum or suffer being seized and led to who-knows-what fate at the hands of the paranoid/jealous higher-ups who don't want upstart or potential rogue channelers running around.
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Rastaban
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Re: Nuum background

Post by Rastaban »

Thank you so very much, this is wonderful information!
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