I guess if you are going to have the core book of a game you want to play so badly you can taste it but will never get the chance you must also own the only published supplement for it...right!
Aria Worlds seems to take the creation up or would it be down a notch. It takes the creation in a little closer allowing the creation with smaller strokes than the core rule book. Though the name of the book is Aria Worlds it might better be called Aria Societies.
This game may not be for everyone and I suspect the actual number who would enjoy it as designed may be quite few. As a resource for world design the core book and perhaps even more so this book are a treasure trove of ideas and tools that will allow the GM or author to better flesh out their creation.
On a side note; there are many pieces of fantasy art I like and would like to have the original of. I think that the cover for this book ranks among the top five that I would like to have the original of.
Published: 1994
Pages: 302
From the back cover:
Awaken the Creator Within
Throughout history, peoples and cultures have told stories of their gods, heroes, and villains in order to better understand the world around them. These myths seize upon the hopes and fears of society; heroes embody a culture's highest ideals while villains manifest as ancient dreads personified. Aria focuses on the Journey of the Hero, the sacred quest of the Monomyth, which represents in mythic language the seeking of cultures after their own identity. Aria Canticle of the Monomyth is a roleplaying game system which attempts to embody this connection between hero and culture.
Aria is designed to function on several levels; during the course of a single game, players can assume the roles of individual personas, persona lineages, or even whole societies. All such interaction is directed toward the development not only of personas, but also of entire cultures and worlds. As an integral part of the game, Aria players weave together mythic, historical, and personal time into one great tapestry of life — a living history beginning with the first game session. Creating this vision of the Monomyth, where heroes and villains clash in a world as well-developed and as rich in character as its mightiest inhabitants, Aria players engage in the pageant of Mythmaking, the evocation of numinous symbols summoned from the collective imaginations of the entire gaming group.
Aria Worlds
In Aria Worlds you will find the tools to craft the environments of your world; if you will, the kingdom of a stage, on which your personas and societies will interact. Includes are the guidelines for creating detailed social structures beginning with a society's age and philosophical outlook, proceeding through an examination of its technology, subsistence, internal structure (political, familial, economic and military), and humanities (religion, art, scholastic and magic) and terminating with a hierarchical organization of its component social classes. Aria Worlds presents these considerations in a linear, comprehensive pattern enabling you, the player, to paint the backdrops of your own mythic stage more completely and richly than ever before.
Moreover, the Aria system of society design is telescoping: a village, a manor, a market town, a city, a kingdom or continent or world can all be designed from the largest continent down or from the smallest village up. The descriptive elements of all the social profiles can be interpreted in countless forms, ranging from the long vanished kingdoms to the primitive tribal communities.
Spell:
Time Leap
Level: Eighth
Range: None
Duration: Permanent
Area of Effect: Caster
Components: V,S
Casting Time: 2 Segments
Saving Throw: None
When this spell is cast the magic user is able to physically travel through time. The unit of time is up to the caster and the amount is determined physically being the actual distance the caster leaps during the casting of the spell.
When the spell is cast the magic user will be asked to specify the unit of time they wish to in The can select from rounds, turn, hours, days, months or years. They will then take and actual leap and the distance they leap in inches will be the number of units they travel forward. The caster can try to limit the length of the leap but it will be impossible for them to get it down to an exact amount. It needs to be noted than travel is only allowed forward and never backwards with this spell.
The caster will arrive at the exact point they would have landed from their leap but at a different point in time. For the world the caster will blink out of and into existence. For the caster they will see the world pass by them in a manner similar to time lapse photography the actual leap taking one full round to complete.
The casting of this spell will have an effect on the caster. Altering the flow of time will tax them physically. The caster will age a minimum of two years with the casting of this spell and potentially 25 years. The caster will age one year plus 1d4 years per unit of time traveled with 1d4 for rounds and topping out at 6d4 for years.
Disclaimer: The spells that you will see, for how ever long the write ups last, were all written up or conceived of back in the 80's so the terminology may not appropriate for anything other than 1e and depending on how well I did back then it may be slightly off for that as well. If there is any duplication of spells that exist now it is most likely I wrote mine first :) Please feel free to comment on them but try not to be too hard on me. If anyone wishes to use these in anything they print please let me know in advance and all I ask is proper credit.
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