Spira and the World

There are some parts of Spira that are not immediately apparent, one of them is that our gamification, while being adjusted, is canon as well as Spira’s general ethic, and information you can learn from others and exploration, while it is not my intention to provide spoilers, some of this are things that should be broadly understood as they affect everyone.

Spira, it’s history in brief.

Spira once had two creators, powerful fairies named Oberon and Titania that lived in a demiplane known as the enchanted forest (Consider it the Faerie realm) that had the idea of creating a world so mortal beings could flood to it, manipulating the elementals to do so. This world became Spira. Eventually, mortals did come. But Oberon kept creating after making Spira, and made himself a dark, strange place called purgatory. Eventually this would cause Oberon to become transformed into Pan, grow jaded as Titania fought his evil, and eventually slay her. But not before she locked him and their shared creation into a pocket-realm called the Veil.

The Veil however, had a flaw, likely not intended, it needed to remain strong to keep Pan from destroying both the faerie realm and the portions of Spira not locked within its grasp. It did so by means unknown, borrowing beings from other realms and sapping them of their skill, of their power, even in some cases of their memories to fuel its wall and its chains. More than this, it would devour the dead’s souls, destroying and shattering their essence to fuel it. Possibly lured by the immense power of these trapped and shattered beings, eldritch entities began attempting to gain entry into Spira through Pan, and eventually, through events unclear, they did. Spira was destroyed. The purgatory, once small and isolated, swallowed up all of Spira unprotected and the veil shattered. Now, the world was destroyed. Reality itself was destroyed.

But, when these eldritch beings were done devouring the world and souls, leaving behind a desolate wasteland without time or space or the smallest hints of life, some ‘life’ remained. The powerful sandstorms destroying Al'Naim seemed to have also preserved it, saving it from the absolut destruction of other realms, and causing it to fall underground. Similarly, Ren’Takal of the Emerald Isles, thought to have been Pan’s first destruction revealed itself to have been protected through means and grace unknown to exist in a destroyed and dilapidated state since those ancient days. Finally, the planar being known mostly as The Shifter took some of the raw-stuff, the raw pieces left of Spira and formed them into a playground of his own, known as Someweyr so he could continue manipulating mortals for his own end.

Spira, or Why or How am I here and what does that mean?

One of the more confusing things about Spira is how did your character get here, and what ‘is’ here? Spira is a frustrating, complex and confusing realm that is blatantly not normal, it is a world between worlds, it is literally a liminal place, a location at the threshold of others. Your character could have come on accident, via a shipwreck, your character could have learned of seemingly infinite resources in this world, your character could even have been summoned, this is not determined, but a few things can be immediately observed.

You lost a lot of power: Or maybe you didn’t, if you were pretty weak to begin with! Everyone upon entering Spira is a level 0 Adventurer. Adventurer is a blank slate, an empty class. It is not skilled nor is it special, it's a placeholder, and this is the level you and your character were reduced to. Much of your supernatural powers were stolen and much of who you were removed. This does not mean you are a blank slate without memories, or have no skills, your character may interpret this as a ‘lack of supplies’ or ‘just being out of practice’ but it is a distinct event. Even if you were once a god, you are now a mortal. This is caused by the remnant of the veil, sucking life and potency from all who enter. Yet Spira also has unique abilities to grant people skills at an unusual rate. An evening could teach a person years of skills or allow them to change their skills on a whim. Basically, your CLASS and your LEVEL and the ability to change them are considered broadly canon. You do not have to RP this, but people are not likely to take you seriously if you attempt to state you are an ancient god or are immortal, simply put, you are no longer here in Spira.

The world is not normal: Spira is clearly and blatantly not a normal realm, everyone should be able to start gathering this. Reality itself does not seem ‘normal’, an example of this is physics. You require copper, yes copper, to create iron. This is not just a peculiarity of the craft system, it is part of the fundamental makeup of the world. Shards, the world’s currency, have some hidden power and secrets to be learned from exploring. The world itself has a supernatural abundance of powerful magical resources and the world is not consistent in makeup, some of its geometry simply does not fully make sense.

The world does not always explain itself: Spira as a sim is about exploration and pushing buttons to figure out what works. The sim is also really interested in remaining in character. Most actions are generally assumed to be in character. Gaining your class, your subclass, questing, becoming corrupted into a shifter, etc. These are things that happen to your character. They are not assumed to be gamification for the sake of gamification. Much of the secrets of Spira have to be gathered from veteran players, the world and NPC dialogue. Some of what I am writing now is a spoiler but a spoiler that should be immediately apparent.

Spira does not like to tell you how to play: While this may seem a contradiction, spira having lore, setting, depowering events and other things, the lore is vague how you interpret this, it’s vague how much things work regarding your character. Does your shifter change shape when they use shift? Yes? No? Maybe? Does your character come from a world where the only sentient people are mushrooms and see the world as such for some reason? Sure, you can do that! Is your Crossbow in your inventory going to be roleplayed as punching someone in the dick? You can do that! We have a huge value placed in freedom to play your own personal character how you want.

Quelle/Credits

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AxKWXq62Eh5zN35gm7_ClGdkvP0RTNYHLW-z6TYkKMo/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks to Madrona “WereScrib” Shchurika for collecting the data!