Primal World

by Brendan Conway

The deep oceans of chaos fill the void between worlds. Their depths hide madness and horror, but sometimes…sometimes, a pearl washes ashore onto the shoals of reality. A new world, born from the chaos. Some of these worlds grow and solidify into a new sphere, a sparkling neocosm. But if it does not grow itself quickly enough, it shall be swept back into the dark when the tide returns. How many worlds are lost this way, before they even take root? An endless tragedy, churning beyond sight of all but the darkest eyes.

—Nayala Hex, Scholar of the Spheres

The Chaos Worlds

Infinite different realities dot the multiverse. Spheres, or cosms, or planes, or whatever you choose to call them. Some old, on the brink of dying, like the world containing the Crater Basin and Anglekite. Some middle-aged, with plenty of trials ahead of them before their time is up, like the sphere that Varkith calls home. Some past the edge of their own demise, waiting to be destroyed or recycled, like the cosm known as Lastlife. And some, brand new, still trying to form themselves into concrete reality. Being wiped away before they can assert their own reality is the greatest threat to their existence.

The Untamed Neocosm

This primal world is such a sphere, a place of neonate essence, to be explored, discovered, and made solid through that discovery. There is no history here, no tradition, no rules from past generations. There is only the limitless potential for anything to be created, to be found. And in a world so young, the choices of its inhabitants will reshape it even as they explore it. Such adventurers show the world how to be, even as the world shapes those born to it.

The Nascent Pillars of Creation

Even a world as young as this has the beginnings of its structure forming. Critical points, places of order or being, strong notions—these are the first crystallizations of the world’s essence.

The Origin

The Origin is the single most structured and solidified point in the world’s existence, and its form speaks to the world’s underlying nature. Changing the Origin would alter that nature. Destroying the Origin would destabilize the world into non-existence.

Finding out exactly what the Origin is, its form, its purpose, is the first discovery for those exploring and defining the primal world.

The Calling

The Calling is some metaphysical sensation that drives the world’s most adventurous denizens together. The Calling is why some explore, investigate, and uncover the nature of this primal world, solidifying it further. It is the survival instinct of the primal world expressing itself through an unconscious drive in the souls of these beings.

The Carnivore

Ideas coalesce and form into new shards of existence in any forming world. Some ideas are kind and gentle, some beautiful and stunning, others lethal and dangerous. There is no telling what wonders await the nascent world. In this case, the primal world’s inchoate form gave birth to something terrifying: the Carnivore.

The Carnivore is an enormous beast, thirty feet tall, with a maw filled with row after row of teeth—no two alike. Every possible fang fills its snaggle-toothed misshapen mouth. Its six eyes can see in the dark, can see heat, can see prey in any possible way. Its body is covered in armored plating like an armadillo, its eight limbs thick and powerful, tipped with rending claws or strong, bone-cracking fingers. It represents the hunger for flesh, consumption, predation. The Carnivore is the world consuming itself; every creature devoured is a bit of the world lost to its own hunger.

And of course, that self-destructive impulse leads the Carnivore to hunt those who would solidify the world.

Setting Creation

As a Quick Start Adventure, Primal World has everything you need to jump into a weird fantasy Fate game.

Much of Primal World is about defining the setting through play, both by discovering it and by shaping it yourself. As a result, you won’t be defining that much of the world before you get started. You’ll only need to know some of the basics, including:

• The Origin: where you are starting your adventures from.
• The Calling: why you are adventuring together.
• The Issues: what the most prominent known threats are—the Current Issue, and the Impending Issue.

The rest comes from your characters, and from discovery!

The Origin

The Origin is your primal world’s first real location, where your characters have come together and from whence they will venture forth.

To define your world’s Origin, choose three aspects. These aspects are in play whenever dealing directly with the Origin.

• Form: how the Origin looks. Is it a crystal palace, or an underground city grown from living rock?
• Function: the Origin’s purpose and how that defines the world. Is it a massive library for recording all knowledge? A locked up armory of terrible weaponry?
• Face: the being in charge of the Origin, who came into being with the Origin itself. Is it a regent, ruling over the Origin? Or a caretaker, self-charged with ensuring the Origin’s safety?

Sample Origin

Form: The Infinite Obsidian Tower, a massive obsidian tower extending as far as the eye can see.

Function: A Nexus of Doorways Throughout the World; the Obsidian Tower has an infinite number of doors, which open up gateways to other unformed part of the world.

Face: The Silent Keylord, a robed and masked figure with an endless supply of keys, each opening a single door.

When defining your Origin, think of the strange, the unique, and the weird. Even though the world is brand new, that doesn’t mean there can’t be incredibly peculiar, oddly eternal elements throughout it.

The Calling

The Calling is why characters have come together, their uniting purpose. All characters share the same Calling. If you want to jump into play quickly, use the following calling: Discover and Solidify the World.

If you have time to choose a Calling, pick any of the following options:

• Discover and Solidify the World
• Defend the World from Externals
• Shape the New World in Your Image
• Create a New Society
• Nurture the World’s Growth

Talk about the Calling and what it means to you. Remember that it is a metaphysical urge bringing the heroes together, not anything tangible.

The Issues

The Issues are the threats that are either currently dangerous or growing in danger.

Explain and talk about the current issue, which by default is The Carnivore. Have the players name at least two faces for the current issue, or use the two provided faces.

Look at the characters’ Calling and think about what issues would best threaten it. If the Calling is “Discover and Solidify the World,” think about possible barriers against such discovery. If the Calling is “Defend the World from Externals,” think about what externals most threaten the world. These will help you craft your impending issues appropriately.

Current Issue: The Origin Devoured

Everything in a primal world is a first, the original form of an idea. The Carnivore is the first creature defined by its need to consume: a predator, the embodiment of predation. The Carnivore’s approach threatens the new beings of this world—each one it consumes is an essence lost, given over to the Carnivore. But destroying the Carnivore would also rob the world of a piece of its essence. Slaying the beast is one option…but the costs must be carefully considered.

Faces:

• The Carnivore. Powerful, hungry, and dangerously intelligent, indifferent to the essence of the world and the cost of destroying whatever it consumes.
• Songbird, an avian creature and sole source of music, whose home lies in the path of the Carnivore’s rampage toward the Origin.

Impending Issues

To craft your impending issues, look at the characters’ Calling and establish a major threat with at least two faces that stands in the way. Here’s a simple set of possible issues and faces based on the Callings above:

Discover and Solidify the World

The Secretist, a creature defined by its desire to seek and keep secrets, aims to prevent any discoveries of the world’s deeper truths.

Defend the World from Externals

Phthogyrak, the Eye of Plague, is a monstrous floating eye surrounded by a haze of black corruption, attempting to infect the world with its own consciousness.

Shape the New World in Your Own Image

The Autocrat, a being defined by its desire for order, seeks to reshape the world into structure and control with every action.

Create a New Society

Voidseeker, a spiritual monk birthed by the world’s empty spaces, seeks to ensure that the world remains unfilled and devoid of any restrictive structures.

Nurture the World’s Growth

The Vampire, the ultimate parasite, feeding upon the world’s strength, seeks a place to latch onto the neocosm’s primal essence and feast.

Character Creation

Primal World is written for Fate Accelerated, and the players should make characters with changes described below or use the sample characters provided below.

Aspects

Characters in Primal World start play with two aspects, a Name and a Question. Character Names replace their high concepts. Characters from a primal world don’t have real names. Instead, Names refer to what they do within the world. Players choose Names that encompass their beings, and flesh them out with a secondary clause if needed. For example, a good Name aspect is Breaker, destroyer of barriers.

A PC’s Question, on the other hand, is a fundamental inquiry into the core of the character’s being, a tension or a struggle within them. It should not refer to any specific external thing—Primal World is about exploring and discovering the world, so a Question is philosophical or internal, and very difficult to answer. Characters are defined by both the Question and the search for an answer. A good Question for Breaker is What Walls Should Never Fall?

Compelling a Question is easy—whenever exploring or dealing with the Question would complicate the character’s life, that’s a compel—but invoking the Question may not seem obvious at first. Whenever players try to answer the Question, they can invoke the Question aspect to their advantage. This doesn’t mean they are definitively answering the Question—only that they are searching for meaning.

Approaches

Player characters in Primal World start the game with a single approach rated at +3. When choosing an approach, players can choose from the standard Fate Accelerated approaches—Careful, Clever, Flashy, Forceful, Quick, and Sneaky—but they can also choose a different approach, either something from the list below, or from their own imagination. Chosen approaches will define how characters interact with the world, and what that world allows within it.

• Angry
• Boastful
• Brave
• Cheerful
• Co
• Crazy
• Curious
• Dangerous
• Daring
• Defiant
• Deft
• Diligent
• Dramatic
• Dutiful
• Elegant
• Faithful
• Foolish
• Frantic
• Hateful
• Honest
• Inquisitive
• Just
• Kind
• Mighty
• Mysterious
• Obedient
• Perfect
• Sad
• Sharp
• Thrill-Seeking
• Weird

When players choose (or create) an approach, ask them to answer the following questions:

• How would someone attack in this way?
• How would someone defend in this way?
• How would someone create advantages in this way?
• How would someone overcome obstacles in this way?
• How would someone discover in this way?

For my character, Breaker, I pick the approach Angry. I answer each of the questions:

• I would use Angry to attack someone with violence and barely controlled anger.
• I would use Angry to defend myself by shouting at someone, and using my anger to bull past any harm.
• I would use Angry to create advantages by saying things that hurt or anger others, or by smashing the environment around me in the right way.
• I would use Angry to overcome obstacles by bulling past them with brute force and anger.
• I would use Angry to discover by smashing and hitting to experiment with something, or by demanding information from other sources.

Stunts

Player characters in Primal World still have the three stunts that normal Fate Accelerated characters have, though none have to be chosen at the start of play. Players should fill them in as they play and learn more about the world and their characters.

Character Advancement

Over the course of Primal World, characters will learn more about the world, and in turn grow and develop themselves. By the end of each session—in addition to any normal milestone advancements—the players can do any of the following to solidify their characters, thereby solidifying the world:

• Create a brand new approach held by nothing else in the world.
• Take an approach already held by another character in the world.
• Create a new aspect referring to something already established within the world.

Adding Approaches

Characters have six slots for approaches: one at +3, two at +2, two at +1, and one at +0. When taking a new approach, characters can shuffle their existing approaches as desired, as long as they stay within their allowed slots.

When taking a new approach, players can choose one already held by another PC, or can take a brand new approach. If they take an existing one, it means that the new world is starting to stabilize (see The World’s Structure, below).

Aspects

In addition to their starting two aspects, their Name and Question, characters can have three additional aspects. Each additional aspect taken must refer to something external. For example, a character could not take Full of Hatred as a third aspect. Full of Hatred for the Lizard Duke would work, though, as it refers to something out in the world.

Referring to something already mentioned in another PC’s aspect will add that fictional element to the world’s stability table (see The World’s Structure, below).

The World’s Structure

The primal world is new, young and weak, under threat of simple dissolution or extradimensional consumption. To solidify and stabilize the world, the PCs have to learn about it, explore it, and take parts of it into themselves. That means taking new aspects that refer to bits of the discovered world, and new approaches that refer to how the world functions.

At the start of play, the world is represented by a stability table with five rows and three columns.

Here’s what a stability table with a few spaces filled in looks like:

The Carnivore	The First Sword
Joyful	Curious	Forceful
The Lizard Duke	Defiant	Brave

Any time a PC takes an approach already held by another PC, add that approach into the lowest, leftmost open space in the stability table. “Lowest” supersedes “leftmost”; if there’s an open space at a lower level, then fill that before filling a spot more to the left at a higher level.

Filled-in approaches become cemented, a part of the world. Once six approaches have been added, no more may be added. Then, all PCs should adjust their approaches, swapping and changing as necessary, to only use the six approaches in the table. Subsequent NPCs from within this world should only have approaches taken from the table.

Brian adds Graceful to The Musician, an approach already held by another PC. Brian then adds Graceful to the World’s table, bringing the total number of approaches in the table to six. All players then must adjust their approaches to use only the six listed on the table. They can change and swap their approaches as desired, so Brian puts Graceful into his +3 approach slot, and fills in the other slots with the approaches from the table.

The Carnivore	The First Sword	Graceful
Joyful	Curious	Forceful
The Lizard Duke	Defiant	Brave

Any time PCs take an aspect that points at something another player’s aspect already points to, they add that fictional element to the stability table in the lowest, leftmost possible space. This signals that it is important: a major part of the world and a recurring item. The fictional element becomes a pillar supporting the world’s reality.

Brian adds an aspect to The Musician: Greatest Musician in the First Tower. The First Tower is already established, and another PC has an aspect pointing to it. So, Brian adds “The First Tower” into the lowest, left-most box of the World’s table.

The First Tower
The Carnivore	The First Sword	Graceful
Joyful	Curious	Forceful
The Lizard Duke	Defiant	Brave

The World’s Dissolution

The world has five conditions, each with two stress boxes attached to it. This is simple stress, so each box is worth one stress. When the world takes stress, the players may assign that stress to whatever empty boxes they choose.

When both boxes of a single condition are marked, the world has that condition as an aspect. If the aspect is removed through action taken by the PCs, then both stress boxes are cleared and can be filled again.

The world’s conditions are:

Rifts to the Outside

Warped Native Creatures

Hunters from Another Reality

An Outworld Shard

A Wellspring of Corruption

Each condition has a specific action that must be taken to clear the stress track and eliminate the condition. If not eliminated by the end of session, then the condition affects the world as a whole, causing additional problems that threaten the cosm’s existence.

Rifts to the Outside

There are gateways, tears in reality, that lead out of this world to other places. By themselves, these rifts destabilize the primal world, with strange effects on natural physical laws. The longer they are open, the more likely other things are to come through…

To Eliminate: Close or block off the rifts.

End of Session Effect: Deal 1 stress to the world.

Warped Native Creatures

Forces from other worlds want to warp and change the creatures of the primal world, making them a mess of twisted monstrosities. Creatures tainted by these forces have approaches that are of the world (if there are any), but also have monstrous alternate approaches. They are from this world, but ruined.

To Eliminate: Find a way to uncorrupt the creatures (killing them would damage the primal world, robbing it of its own life).

End of Session Effect: Empty the upper-rightmost slot in the world’s stability table.

Hunters from Another Reality

Many of other worlds happily plunder young, weak worlds, taking whatever is valuable before returning home. These plunderers have found a way in to the primal world. Every piece they remove from this world is another harm dealt to it.

To Eliminate: Get rid of the hunters.

End of Session Effect: Empty the upper-rightmost slot in the world’s stability table.

An Outworld Shard

An outworld shard is a piece of another world, or of the Outside itself, that has pierced the primal world. Such shards are invariably powerful, and they are all dangerous—both to those who wield them and those who face them. They are artifacts of astonishing power, not to be trifled with.

To Eliminate: Destroy the shard, or rob it of its power.

End of Session Effect: Increase the difficulty of the Stability roll by +1.

A Wellspring of Corruption

Wellsprings release a warping force, transforming the landscape into something very different. If opened, a wellspring must be plugged before it overwrites the whole of the primal world.

To Eliminate: Plug the wellspring, or contain it.

End of Session Effect: Add 1 stress to “Warped Native Creatures.” If “Warped Native Creatures” has both stress boxes filled in, then there is no other effect.

The World’s Stability

The world has a Stability score, rated from Mediocre (+0) to Superb (+5). In the beginning, the Stability is rated at Mediocre (+0), as the vulnerable world is unstable and impermanent. When every slot in a single row of the table is filled in, the world’s Stability goes up by 1. So if all 15 boxes across the five rows of the table are filled in, the world’s Stability is Superb (+5).

At the end of every session, the world first suffers any effects of its current conditions, and then the players roll to determine the state of the continued conflict for the world’s stability. Roll and add the world’s Stability to the roll; compare that roll to a static Superb (+5) difficulty, representing the inherent tendency of new worlds to dissolve:

• On a failure, the world takes 1 stress for every shift by which it fails.
• On a tie, the world takes no stress, but the next time the players roll to determine the state of the world, the static difficulty is Fantastic (+6), instead of Superb (+5).
• On a success, the world suffers no stress.
• On a success with style, the world’s reality has been cemented! The players no longer need to roll at the end of every session. The world’s stress track is entirely cleared, and the conditions are removed.

Game Structure

Primal World is about exploration and discovery; the characters discover themselves by exploring and solidifying the world itself. During play, put new things in front of the PCs, so they can write new aspects, and see different approaches in action. Meanwhile, force the PCs to respond to individual conditions that the world might incur over the course of play.

While running Primal World, pop in new fictional elements as much as possible, and let the PCs interact with them. Feel free to make them dangerous, or unpleasant—even if they are predatory, they’re still a part of the primal world. When the world suffers a condition, hammer on that condition. Bring in horrible monsters and abominations, and make clear the consequences the world is suffering.

Using the provided Current Issue and the guidelines for Impending Issues, you should have a strong idea of where to start, introducing those faces and elements and exploring them. Here are some good starting, middle, and ending scenes to help guide your play.

Opening Scene: The Charge

The characters have gathered at the Origin for the first time. The Calling has drawn them here, and they meet the face of the Origin.

This is a chance for these different potential aspects of the world to meet and interact, to understand each other, and to realize their own differing visions of what the world should be. The face of the Origin can act as an expression of the Calling itself, giving it voice, and can make clear the greatest immediate threat—the coming of the Carnivore.

The characters may not know about the Carnivore, but with the face telling them that the Carnivore is crushing its way toward the Origin, to consume the very source of the world, the Calling will compel them to act quickly and decisively.

The face of the Origin could point them to different rumored pieces of the primal world. The Weapon, for example—first of its kind, the embodiment of a death-bringing tool, changing its form to suit its wielder—could be key to slaying the Carnivore. The Stone Chains—born from solid stone, seamless, capable of holding anything—might have manifested to restrain the beast.

How will they face the Carnivore? How will they interact with each other? What will the Origin and the face come to mean to them? What will they seek for the coming battle?

Starting aspects: At the Source of It All, Stricken by the Calling, Distant Thunder of the Carnivore

Middle Scene: The Struggle

On their way to either find tools to use against the Carnivore, or to find the Carnivore itself, the characters encounter more of the primal world’s nascent wonders. In this case, it’s the First Cathedral, a massive temple made from a single piece of shimmering, opalescent crystal with spires scraping the sky. The First Faithful, creatures that look like empty robes, inhabit and tend to the Cathedral. It’s also home to Songbird, the embodiment of music, who ran here to escape the Carnivore’s destruction.

The Cathedral, threatened by the Carnivore, stands between the creature and the Origin. The First Faithful are just snacks for the creature; Songbird will have to flee again, but with no place to hide besides the Origin itself.

The Cathedral could house either the Stone Chains or the Weapon, or something even more dangerous: Jurgen Worldhunter, bearer of Karkagandr the Rift-Axe, has come to this world. Tearing a rift through the Cathedral’s own walls, he comes to claim this world and its treasures for himself.

It’s a dangerous situation. Can they get what they want from the Cathedral with the First Faithful and Jurgen in their way? Can they save Songbird? Can they direct Jurgen toward the Carnivore? Will they work quickly enough to avoid the oncoming Carnivore?

Starting aspects: Home to a Nascent God, Defended by the First Faithful, A Light That Burns Across the Worlds

Final Scene: The Battle

This is the end. The Carnivore has come, and the characters must stop it. Maybe they can talk it down, or bind it instead of killing it, but there’s no way to avoid dealing with it.

Everything comes to a head outside the Origin. The Carnivore has carved a trail of destruction straight towards it. It may have been diverted around the Cathedral, but it’s here now, and it’s hungry. The face of the Origin is ready to defend it, but has no real chance against a creature as powerful as the Carnivore.

If Jurgen is around, then destroying the Carnivore and conquering the Origin would be on his agenda, as well—the creature threatens his spoils, and the Origin would give Jurgen access to anything he wanted.

Time to use the Weapon, or the Stone Shackles, or stand strong against the Carnivore, and Jurgen, and all other attackers. The world itself reacts to the oncoming battle, with thunder and lightning crackling in the darkening skies above.

Will the Carnivore be slain, and another piece of the world lost? Will the Origin be altered by the battle? Will Jurgen be cast from this world? Will the face of the Origin live?

Starting aspects: A World-Rending Battle, Lightning and Thunder Above, At the Foot of the Origin

Next Sessions: Where to go from here?

Remember at the end of the session to make the stability roll. There’s a good chance the world will suffer some stress in the early stages, which will lead to conditions. Press on those conditions and their consequences to create new threats, and new places to explore. If you’re looking for more ideas, here are some elements that the characters might find in the primal world:

Jethanascoriaximolonigan, the Namer

Jethanascoriaximolonigan (Jeth for short, but don’t call her that) is the Namer, whose mind is filled with possible names and identities for the world around her. The Namer’s purpose is to name things and record them on an unending scroll she carries within her arm. Her body is covered in myriad possible languages and glyphs. She is bald, and each of her three eyes is a different color. One long finger on her right arm is a quill that oozes ink, and with a simple shuffle of her left arm, her scroll unfurls itself. Any name she records, she sees as writ upon the very fabric of the world.

• The Bearer of the First Name
• “Do You Want to Know Your Name?”
• Sharpened Quill Finger
• Curious +3

The Sphere of the Dead

The Sphere—enormous and impenetrably black—floats above the world. One can pass through it, like passing through a thick sludge; inside are the souls of the dead, their memories encased for eternity. The world is new and young, and life is just beginning, but already the Sphere is a constant reminder of the end. Perhaps when the world is older, the Sphere will grow and move away from the skies, but for now it floats above as a dark omen in the sky.

• Prison of the Dead
• Visible in the Sky Across the World
• Open to the Living

Seer

Seer is a scout for the Things from Outside. A horrible creature, made of crystal held together by sinew and muscle. Each crystal looks like an eye, aimed in a different direction on its spherical body. Seer perceives the world, so the Things can find it. It undermines the structure of the primal world merely by observing it. Seer has no interest in killing or feeding on anything in the world itself—it instead seeks the most succulent morsels for its masters to consume.

• Crystalline Body
• Warps Reality Through Observation
• Smells Power
• Forceful +2
• Stealth +2

Sample Characters