WWW: The Chan · 4:32am Nov 18th, 2016
I met a man from the land of masks,
whose wooden visage held the task
to hide his heart and soul away
from the lamp-light eyes of the Beast in the Bay.The masks they wore, the stranger said,
did more than shield the face and head,
but hid their thoughts and minds from he
who watches them from 'neath the sea.— “The Land of Masks”, Stanzas I-II
Well, after a week of weeping bitter tears for the fate of the Republic, I'm in dire need of some cheering up. What could possibly help, though?
Oh, I know, how about some mutha-flippin' woooooorldbuildin'!
Today, we're taking a little walk in the wilder side of the Web. You've heard of the weird part of the Internet? Then you're in for a treat.
Welcome to the Chan.
Also, follow the links at the bottom of these pictures to find the sources. Took me absolute ages to find ones that were a decent representation of the Chan. Seriously, why don't more people make art involving people wearing masks?
Also, The World Within the Web just hit 900 unique views! So close... I'm praying for 1000 soon. Now that will be quite a milestone!
Far in the southwest of the Known Internet, far from Central or the white towers, far from hearth or home or civilized land, one finds a strange group of islands squatting in the Saying Sea. It is a barren land: rocky, gloomy, and bleak. Its inhabitants are relatively few, its significance to trade little. And yet much has been said of this alien land, and much more of its people - the Channic.
There are older races living in the World Within the Web, but none could be called as curious and strange as the Channic. In equal parts, they are downcast and delirious, sullen and passionate, deeply violent and yet possessed by a great creativity. More than anything else, however, one can undoubtedly say that they are a people mixed with uncommon paranoia.
At all times, the Channic believe themselves to be observed, weighed, and at risk of enslavement by an unseen and unknowable force. Every waking moment of their lives are spent in grim realization of this scrutiny, and so they have found methods that they believe will hide them from view - wooden faces, expertly carved and worn at all times, even when among friends and family. The anonymites, as the masked-men are called, claim that this bizarre ritual works wonders in keeping eldritch eyes away. Most, however, believe that it has done little for their sanity
Sane or not, the anonymites of the Chan are an ornery bunch - wildly independent, highly suspicious of outsiders, and extraordinarily cynical. Their distaste for others does not make them a terribly friendly people, and they possess a great distrust for their fellow man. To even show one's true face or give one's birth-name is considered a sign of intolerable weakness, an admission that other people are worthy of knowing who you are. By Channic logic, to know a man's name and to know a man's face is to gain power over them, and those who are lorded over by others are slaves and fools to be mocked and destroyed. Thus, anonymites don their masks and take on 'mask-names' to match - invented titles, usually short and often rude.
Channic masks are works of incredible variety - there are vendors of masks available for those that desire such things, but most Channic at least try to make their own. The result is a hundred thousand different kinds of the things: masks of fire-forged steel or rich gold encrusted with gems, masks adorned with bright-dyed silk or painted up in hideous tribal marks, masks bearing the number of men the anonymite has slain or masks whittled from the remains of sunken ships, from gnarled oaks, from foreign teywood or cursed wurmwood straight from a Channic forest. The possibilities are endless, which can make walking a Channic crowd a disorienting experience.
Some of the anonymites pattern their adopted faces after the fandoms they follow: the Animen anonymites, for example, will often paint their masks bright colors or pattern them after the otherworldly brides they claim to have wed. The Bronies of Sixchan-on-the-Shore may bear horns upon their masks, or small wings along the sides. Catching an anonymite with his mask off is considered a grave insult, usually answered by a challenge to fight. For an anonymite to willingly reveal his true identity, however, is a sign of unparalleled trust and respect - those who are graced with this honor should savor it, for it rarely comes twice.
The Chan is a place of faction and fragmentation, with little in the way of government or rule. The anonymites themselves are a deeply individualistic bunch, who scorn centralized power and loath ideas of service or sacrifice. Self-interest is the prevailing principle here: each Channic considers himself alone to be his own god and king, and consents to be ruled only by his own appetites. The only means to bind Channic to a cause are greed, force, or fraud, and so it is difficult for them to truly bind together on any given front. Meet an anonymite who believes one thing, and you will be a hundred more who think that he is an idiot to think so.
Cynicism is the name of the proverbial game amongst this lot: ideals, causes, or dreams of morality are thought of as laughable at best and the talk of slavers at worst. So far as the masked-men are concerned, people who try and convince you of right or wrong are either delusional or trying to sell you something, and both can be safely derided and ignored. Truth and goodness are relative and fluid, to the Channic mind, changing from day-to-day based upon what is most convenient at a given time. Traditions are fuel for fire and little else, and so they are often made the subject of ridicule: the Channic are famous for a dark and biting sense of humor that spares no one, least of all themselves. A conversation with the average Channic is often so stooped in irony and lies that it is extremely hard to tell if they actually believe what they're saying, or merely trying to bait others into an amusing reaction.
The Chan is a small archipelago with several islands, though only a few of these are consistently inhabited and visited enough to be deemed important. There are six such isles traditionally considered to be the main ones by their inhabitants, each with somewhat varying customs:
1. Anichan: the longest-inhabited of the islands, home to Moot's Point, allegedly the site where Channic settlers first landed. Here the Animen fandom holds sway, a fractious conglomerate rife with in-fighting.
2. Restchan: actually two islands separated by the Fan's Channel, containing numerous smaller groups. Many other fandoms are dominant in this area, such as the Comican, Gamers, or others. Also of note is Polchan in the north: not controlled by a fandom, the inhabitants of this land are well-known as xenophobic contrarians, being the home of insurrectionist raiders such as the Red Pillar.
3. Musechan: a place of craftsmen and artists, famed for their elegant, if somewhat unsettling, driftwood carvings.
4. Smallchan: home to outcasts, loners, and other sorts unsuited to the other isles.
5. Greatchan: the largest, most populace, and most powerful of the Channic isles, home to the capital city of Baysmouth. The Chan is famous for sparking strange trends and novelties, and many of these phenomena spawn here.
6. Redchan: a red-zone, full of salacious content. Respectable people are advised to avoid such a place.
Moot's Point derives its name from the curious ritual practiced by the Channic, in which a single anonymite is chosen from thousands to be named 'Mootking' over all of the masked-lands. Although this sounds contrary to their hatred of authority, the Mootking is not a ruler in any ordinary sense. There is no line of succession, nor any formal gathering to determine who becomes king after their predecessor dies, thus leading to long periods in which there were multiple Mootkings or none at all. The only real criteria is that a Mootking should usually be crowned at Moot's Point and rule from Baysmouth, but even this is more suggestion than law. One becomes Mootking purely by enough Channic claiming that one is the Mootking through a bizarre election of acclamation.
Though chosen by their fellow people to don the Baymaster's Mask, the Mootking has no formal powers save for what he might take for himself. A strong king affords respect, while a weak king receives none. The current Mootking goes by the mask-name Kulk, but is quite different from some of his predecessors - there are those who claim that he is too friendly by half with foreigners and Moderators, and more than a few allege that he has secret ties to Channic enemies.
Crouching at the shore of the Bay of Masks is black Baysmouth, the city often regarded as the Channic capital. It is certainly the largest settlement in the isles, being the chief port of Greatchan, itself the most populace and powerful of the main islands. The city itself is a lawless place, filled to the brim with renegades, raiders, cybramancers, fandom-followers, and other desperate characters in a constant flux of fire-feud and violence.
Baysmouth, like many Channic centers, is more a sprawl of buildings and muddy paths than a planned city like Silkensigh of the Devien Isles, or Central of the tall towers. Streets are renamed randomly, homes are lost, gained, then lost again in pointless fights, and often it seems as though half of the city is ablaze with the fires of constant conflict. The city has a storied history of war, and many an army has taken the city throughout time. A more famous example is that of Madelin Wright, the Brony Warden of All Loyalty, who raised an army of those sworn to the Six Friends Who Are One and used them to capture Baysmouth in a surprise attack. She was forced to retreat soon after, but a shocking counterattack in the later stages of the Brony Rebellion ended with her sacking Baysmouth a second time, trapping the opposition forces between her army and that of the Honest Friends and effectively ending the war in the Bronies' favor.
The crown of Baysmouth, looming over on its only high hill, is the Slouch-Hall - the imperial palace of the Mootking and his attendants. It is a bizarre, twisted-looking thing: an ugly jumble of dozens of towers and halls awkwardly smashed together. The Slouch-Hall has little in common with the manses of the Painted Sea, the longhalls of the Sajle, or the cathedral-towers of Central: it is foreboding and unsightly in its design, if one could even call it that. In truth, little planning went into its construction: the Slouch-Hall is ancient, and has been under almost constant construction since it was made, with new Mootkings adding in new sections or tearing down others with little regard to aesthetics or structural integrity.
The guts of the place is as disorienting as the outside. The Slouch-Hall is meant to be a palace of sorts, but in reality it is more like a labyrinth: a maze of interconnected halls and rooms that fade in and out of one another seemingly at random. A visitor in the Slouch-Hall may see strange things, as they walk the halls and open doors to try and find their way: giant ballrooms filled with cobwebs, stairways that lead to empty sky, rooms with beds slashed by knives and old stains of blood on the walls, treasure-vaults piled high with stolen wealth and skulls, or dark, cavernous chambers filled with unknown altars and yellow idols.
Much of the Chan is covered in mealy, stone-strewn moors, largely useless for farming and unappealing as scenery. An exception lies in the northern portion of Greatchan: the Wurmwood. A wide and ancient forest, the Wurmwood is foggy, dark, and mysterious, home to few inhabitants and fewer visitors. Most Channic tend to avoid the wood: the cities contain far more of the violent delights they prefer than this unsettling place. And yet, despite seeming so devoid of people, one can still find signs of inhabitants: trees strung with knotted ropes, offerings of tied-sticks and empty bowls left on stone altars, and giant wood-carved idols that look down pitilessly at those who pass by.
Legends of the Wurmwood place it as a home of magic, though rarely the pleasant kind. The peculiar trees that grow there are said to have unique properties, as do the strangler vines that ring 'round and choke away other plants - when ground up, the stranglers make for a fine powder often used in crude smoke bombs. But the plants are the least of concerns to some. There are those that believe the woods are not merely a forest, but a refuge - specifically, a gathering-place for rogue cybramancers. Others fear something even worse, noting with fear that the Mad Mod, Ira Ahzred, was known to frequent the forest so as to commune with demon-gods. Some rumors claim that his few remaining followers, living and dead both, still haunt the Wurmwood, dancing with shadows around night-fires and waving silver knives.
Linking all of the major Channic isles is the Bay of Masks, an infamous place of wrecked ships and drowned men. The waters there are stormy, its shores rocky, and its inhabitants dangerous. Small wonder that many ships wash up upon the Coast of Wrecks, broken and abandoned. But storms and stones are not the least of the Bay's dangers. The Chan is said to be home to an entire school of krakens, pulling down ships and drowning whatever crewmen they do not devour. At the very least, this would explain the uncanny number of ships that seem to disappear there.
Being a poor country with little in material wealth, the Chan has been home to alternative means of earning one's living, namely reaving. The Chan is well-known for being the haunt of pirates and smugglers, but it is the Channic raiders that often earn the most attention. Many are driven purely for profit or fame, striking quickly at foreign sites and vanishing as quickly as they came. Others, however, are insurrectionist groups, who fight and kill perceived enemies of the Channic ways.
Some of the groups inhabiting the Chan are relatively benign: the Banescholars of Krasindis Plain, for example, have little interest in the master plans of outsiders. These insurrectionist groups, on the other hand, are quite infamous. One of the more notable examples is the Red Pillar, a group that has now spread to occupy cells in Reddit and other areas of the Saying Sea. Fanatically devoted to wiping out the Blurrite Oppressed and their supporters, the Red Pillar are part of the main front in the Great Gamer War, one of the largest conflicts the Web has ever seen. This destructive and highly controversial war has forced great changes upon the Chan, of late, with Mootking Kulk bringing down a firm hand in an attempt to expel the insurrectionists and restore order.
These actions have done little to improve Kulk's popularity, but they have also created a new class of Channic exiles: political refugees now streaming into foreign lands after being turned away from their native isles. Some of these exiles have taken refuge with sympathetic groups in the city-site of Reddit or with the Escapists, but most have gone to Twicechan - the so-called 'mad daughter of the Chan.'
Twicechan was founded by anonymites who thought their original home was too weak for their tastes, and have somehow succeeded in building an even more anarchic site on an island that barely scrapes the edge of the Deep Web. It once received little attention, but now the Channic exiles fill the docks of Freewheel and have proclaimed their new home the True Chan, the chosen inheritor of the dying anonymite ways. The situation is increasingly worrisome for those attempting to keep the Channic in line - new reports suggest that the Twicechannic are allying themselves with elements in the Deep Web, either smugglers on the fabled Torric Line or perhaps even fleshtrappers eager for new prey. Whatever their goals, the results are unlikely to be good.
Yet there are some that believe in far older and more dangerous things in the waters of the Chan. Among the Channic, one often hears in hushed tones of the "watcher in the waves," of "something in the sea," of "the yellow eye that sees all." They speak of a monstrous creature, grand and cruel, whom they believe themselves to be in constant war against - the Beast in the Bay. The anonymites claim to feel its presence at all times: the Beast constantly attempting to invade their minds and enslave them. It is because of this terror that they chose to don their masks, as they believe that anonymity will rescue them from the constant surveillance and depredations of this monstrosity.
This apparently aids in fooling the Beast, but they warn that it will not succeed forever. The oldest and wisest of the Channic claim that this Beast only grows stronger with time, and that one day its reach will be inescapable - an entire world bowed to its will, and all people reduced to thralls.
What is the truth of these tales? None can say. Some have attempted to learn more about these disturbing beliefs, and brought back great insight into the superstitions. Others founds darker paths. One servant of the Moderator Authority, Lord Ira Ahzred, spent decades studying the Chan, all while spiraling deeper and deeper into insanity. By the end of his life, he had declared himself to be the Beast's chosen and raised a bloody rebellion in its name, one that only ended with his execution. The story of 'the Mad Mod' lived on, however, with his infamous and often incoherent grimoire: the Darksea Compendium.
The suggestions that Ahzred makes in his tome are unsettling to say the least. It is said that the Beast in the Bay shares a connection of sorts to the Deep Web, such that those that venture in may leave with the Beast's touch upon them, a corruption that slowly whittles them down to an empty caricature of their past selves kept alive solely for some daemonic purpose. Another passage describes corpses being raised from the dead, filled with a yellow light that makes them obedient beyond measure and impervious to pain. Blood rituals, and founts of eternal life given at a grave cost.
The words of a lunatic, certainly.
Once again....... holy shit is this incredible. Just.. the shear amount of thought, worldbuilding, effort... and for.. who knows how much of this will actually be relevant to be needed, yet to come up with so damn much detail...
Still... some of this just has to come into play, it has been brought up far to much, especially The Beast in the Bay, something is going on with that thing, and perhaps something else from the Deep Web...
I'm sure I could come up with way more to point out but... it's really late here and was about to head to bed so. to tired to really think. Still.... wow this was awesome, and hope work on Part 3 is going good. Ignore that crapfest of IRL, embrace the glory of Equestria.
Oh... ohhhhh just noticed those tags at the end... very sneaky and... yeah did figure that would have something to do with the larger picture.. can't wait to find out more.
First off, someone, somewhere, can we get an RPG of this? 'Cause this is awesome!
And oh boy, we're definitely looking at a fight with Tall, Dark, and Tentacle-y at this point. Looking forward to it.