World Building - Artificial Deity Project

A dying world full of ambiguity, fear and fish.

For this project, Franziska van Wulfen and I focused on developing a rich world that can contain multiple stories.

Thematic core pillars of the world and its mythology are ambiguity, decay

We spent several months working on a world bible that would serve as the basis of an IP and a setting for our first project set in this IP, “Artificial Deity Project: The Mansion by the Sea”.

Ambiguity is a main theme in the overarching story we developed, so we set out to design a world that would reflect that theme in many of its aspects.

Key Points

Story is set on a gigantic tree that grew from the corpse of a slain god
The tree is surrounded by a seemingly infinite ocean
Its inhabitants used to be immortal until people suddenly started dying several decades ago
The tree’s ruler, an entity named Dav’D, began creating Artificial Deities to defeat death
Ever since Immortality has been lost, a never-ending winter has set in and gigantic hands threaten to tear the tree down into the depths of the ocean

The Sea Region

Situated at the very bottom of the tree, far away from the glitz and glamour of the crown, lies the Sea Region.

What was once a popular tourist destination has been transformed into a desolate mishmash of small towns and abandoned settlements.

Due to its proximity to the ocean and the threat of the hands steadily emerging from it, it has been declared a key defensive position by the Tree’s military forces.

The military‘s arrival has drained the population of vital resources such as food and shelter, which has caused most people in the region to develop an intense hatred of the military.

Sea Region - In-Game

The player character, a spoiled brat who joined the military, should feel out of place and unwelcome among a tightly-knit community of working class people, who feel rightfully betrayed by the very institution the player, a military sergeant, represents.

NPCs in the region provide different perspecives on what it means to be undead. While some succumb to utter nihilism or put all of their hopes into a mystical saviour figure, others have learned to form communities around their fear of uncertainty and death.

The main quest in this area explores these themes in relation to our protagonist’s internal conflict. (Accepting uncertainty vs Trying to go back to the way things were)

They also serve as a minor antagonistic force, as they do not react well to the player character’s military background. Thus, their trust and cooperation are things to be earned and the player’s relationship to them changes.

The Artificial Deity

The artificial deity, a girl named “Daecii”, was artificially crafted from the heart of the Tree to save humanity from a future of neverending rot and stagnation.

Her entire life has been dedicated to gaining control over her healing powers and becoming the saviour of humanity, which puts her under immense pressure.

She has not made any meaninful progress for years and might not be able to fulfill the seemingly impossible task placed on her shoulders.

Under the impression that she is failling all of humanity and, worst of all, her father, her mental state has deteriorated drastically.

Since she is linked to the heart of the Tree, this has negatively impacted it and caused a brutal winter to settle in.

The Chronicle

The Chronicle, also referred to as the Immaterial Sea, the Ocean or “Ursuppe” , is a body of water that surrounds the Tree and stretches as far as the eye can see.

It is an unstable dimension of the metaphysical that is influenced by the emotions and actions of the Tree’s inhabitants. Like the name suggests, it is a chronicle of all that ever has been and will be.

This dimension is home to the mysterious entities commonly referred to as “The Sisters” and their creations.

It is the source of all life on the tree and frequently births new species of animals.

Attempting to traverse the Chronicle via boat is highly discouraged, as no one who has attempted this has ever returned.

The Tree

The Tree is divided into three sections; The Roots, the Branches and the Crown.

Overall, the Tree has a collective landmass of 40.000km², which is approximately the size of Switzerland.

Most populated areas are located on the outer branches, as it is less humid and sunnier there.

Sadly, a lot of these towns are sparsely populated nowadays, as people have been moving up the branches to escape the threat of the hands.

The bark and structure of the tree create a hilly topology. Water is extracted from the ocean and pumped up through the trunk to the very top of the tree, where it gets filtered. It flows back down in man-made rivers.

The Rot//Undeath

For most of the Tree’s existence, the people who have lived on it have been immortal. Their bodies would recover from any injury and death wasn’t something people knew or feared.

This changed when Dav’D created the first Artificial Deity and split people’s souls from their bodies. All of a sudden, hunger, injury and age became serious problems and large chunks of the population struggled to adapt.

Of course, this change affected those who could not afford food disproportionally harder, causing way more deaths among the working class than among the wealthy.

As a result, being in a state of undeath is now associated with belonging to the lower class.

The Undead who wish to avoid being ostracized for dying, tend to cover up the rot with clothing and masks.

In-game, the player character is rotting and falling apart which should be a consideration when writing dialogues and choices. The player can not do any physical labour or solve conflicts with violence without falling apart and NPCs react to the player’s state of decay.

The Military

The military forces deployed in the sea region are mainly tasked with keeping the gigantic hands emerging from the ocean at bay.

Their orders are to monitor and shoot at the hands twice per day, using large cannon constructs that have been deployed around the edges of the sea region just for this,

This task has proved to be a neverending, sisyphean one, as new hands appear every day and no discernible progress has been made. The source of the hands is unknown but Dav’D, the reigning entity of the tree, is convinced they were sent by his sisters to torment him.

Mythology

There once was a vast ocean, containing nothing but a single seed of life: The Angel.

The Angel was a deity born from the subconscious memory of the Chronicle (the ocean) and bestowed with god-like powers, which she would use to create her four children, the seraphs.

The ocean, as the Ursuppe of this world, has started to create other beings, smaller, human-like and much less powerful than the Angel and the Seraphs. As these prehistoric humans started to form civilizations, the Seraphs took an interest in them. The Angel as the de facto queen and goddess of the ocean gave each of the Seraphs a domain to reign over.

The youngest of the Seraphs, Dav‘D, ended up drawing the short end of the deal, as his domain was not populated by humans. He was a lord in name only, possessing only a fraction of the powers of his siblings. He started punishing humans, laying waste on the domains of his sisters and killing all those daring to put a step into his territory. After repeated warnings, his sister decided to take away his deity powers, leaving him with even less than before.

To get his powers back, he made the decision to take them by force. He tricked his mother into drinking poison in order to steal her powers. His matricide was successful, however his sisters caught wind of it and before he could conclude his plan, they came for him. Scared of being killed, he hid and fled on top of the corpse of his mother floating on the surface of the ocean. After years and years of hiding, finally a sprout started to grow from his mothers corpse, slowly but surely forming into a gigantic tree that Dav’D would soon call himself the Lord of.

Creation Myth - Origins of the Tree

Creation Myth - The First Humans

Not before long a second tree would grow, the Source Tree. It was a tree that could grow human beings. When the first human being was born, Dav’D realized that this was his opportunity to finally become the Lord that he had always desired to be. He took in the human and groomed him to live in worship to him and did so consequently with all humans after that. Unlike the humans he knew in the sea, these ones were immortal, destined to never know death.

Soon he had raised a population of Dav’D worshippers whom he reigned over, spinning tales of his godhood and how he had created the world by banishing his evil sisters from the surface. In reality however he was still terrified that they would find and kill him, which caused him to build his palace on the crown of the tree, far far away from the ocean where his sisters still resided.

Creation Myth - The Paranoia of Dav'D

Still terrified of his sisters coming for him, Dav’D realized that the only way to quell his fear was to take his sisters out. However, he himself did not possess powers anymore, making his only option to send a human army to defeat his sisters. For this to be possible though, he needed to change his subjects into something different. Knowing that the tree still held some of his mother’s powers, Dav‘D decided to take out the Source Tree’s heart and carve it into a human being, or rather a deity, like him. He called this the “Artificial Deity Project“. Damian was born. With her help Dav’D wanted to turn humanity into a new aquatic species, able to leave the tree and kill his sisters.

Creation Myth - Death

Dav‘D didn’t treat Damian like a human being, but an experimental entity, that is pushed to bring in results, receiving little to no human contact. Since her powers didn’t seem to develop at all, Dav‘D started putting more and more pressure on her, acting violently, all in order to squeeze out results.

Damian’s emotional state deteriorated quickly, when suddenly a new phenomenon emerged on the tree. Death. Whenever someone got terribly ill, or became the victim of a deadly accident, they would die. However, death did only infer that the person’s body starts to rot, slowly but surely. Their soul and mind remained intact.

Dav‘D realized that The Artificial Deity Project had failed. Instead of creating new life, Damian became a creator of death. He attempted to murder Damian in order to erase the mistake he had made, but it turned out that she was absolutely unkillable. Left with no other option, Dav‘D locked her away in a deep slumber.