The World of Ryne: Worldbuilding

For really in-depth information and worldbuilding, it's worth getting the Ryne playbook! This page is intended more as a listening aid with reminders of how various elements of the world work.

*Ryne is a world of restless gods and shifting landscapes. It's a world approaching an end. There's a sense of things dying and an uncertainty that those things will be replaced.*

Ryne is sparsely populated, mostly consisting of small, somewhat isolated communities. Not all areas are hospitable, but some are abundant and these attract people.

Everything in this world is huge, epic, expansive, and overwhelming- but people living there don't see it that way. They still have lives to get on with. The geography of Ryne is a patchwork, and seemingly incongruous geographies can sit beside one another quite easily.
A lot of folklore- different people may have different beliefs depending on where they live
Mood is soft, pastel, autumnal, hopeful, ribbon-y, fading out, fractured, an aftermath

## Spirit

Most people have a physical body and a spirit, and these can be separated. Spirit is separate from mind, and damage to spirit doesn't have parallels to mental health.
Weavers and Hearts are people who work with spirit by tracing the web it forms. Binders use spirit as a substance, a component, much in the way of alchemists. Snarls manipulate the spiritual to change the world.

### Ghosts and Hollows

Ghosts and Hollows only have one form, like the Remnants. Ghosts are spirits that endure without a body. Hollows are bodies that persist without spirit. Sometimes the spirit and the body have been split and both parts now exist separately; in other cases one half of the person was destroyed and the other half has to go on without that part. Ghosts and Hollows still have a mind and can think in the same way that a whole person does.
Communities across Ryne view Ghosts and Hollows differently depending on their views of death, soul etc. A Ghost or Hollow could be hunted down and destroyed, or welcomed as part of the family.

* Notable Ghosts: Ivar (Embrace)
* Notable Hollows: Flint Erul Tun (Eolith), Yani (Tiding)

## Remnants

Remnants are collosi that walk the earth. Perhaps they're living gods, or maybe they were created by the gods to be stewards. they shape the landscape around them in their image. The Remnants were once whole, beings of both physical form and spirit, but have since been split into Vacants (purely matter) and Echoes (purely spirit); and it's breaking them. Perhaps they used to be gods? Perhaps servants of gods... can new ones be born? What happens if they all die?

* Remnants personify and maintain the mood of a Territory
* physical effect on environment, but not always- depends on remnant

-Remnants have effect on culture in their territory- sometimes they are trying to influence things (see e.g. tribute); sometimes the remnant doesn't do much & some community members even stop believing they're real

* Notable Remnants: Duier, Sharrow, Strael, Issiah (Tiding); Rodella, The Ochre Hull (Embrace)

## Magic

Several types of people can use magic to interact with the world: a storyteller might use words to harm a spirit, or a fighter might undertake seemingly superhuman feats. Weavers and Binders can interact more strongly with spirits, manipulating them and performing more obvious magicks. Unraveling can access magic to the greatest degree (usually from the Remnant they work with), but the cost is much higher. Unraveling are coming apart at the seams, worsened every time they use their abilities. Gradually they lose pieces of their spirit and 'unravel', eventually losing their self completely.
Some Unraveling people bond with Remnants to teach the people of the territory how to live with the Remnant (e.g. giving tribute), and potentially teaching the Remnant how to treat the people; the form of their magic takes on aspects of the Remnant's themes. Other Unraveling might use their powers to manipulate the Remnant for their own gain. Unraveling are often mistrusted by communities, and some cultures in Ryne have even been known to kill members of their community (including infants) that show signs of having these powers. Other factions in the world hunt down Unraveling, either to eliminate them or use them as weapons for their own gain. Even those Unraveling that avoid being hunted are unlikely to live a long life: most succumb to their spirit being torn apart by over-use of their abilities. Unraveling may serve several remnants over their lifetime, depending on which territories they travel to (they can even be bonded with more than one at once; conversely, if they are completely unbonded, their magic becomes wild, and they are less in control of the outcome).

## Humanities

What it means to be human in Ryne isn't the same as here. There are so many influences from the remnants and envoys, the landscape, magic, spirit, and so on that the diversity of humans is very broad: people might have feathers, skin like tree-bark, honey for blood, extra sets of limbs, bioluminescence, multifaceted glowing eyes... The combination of whatever features an individual has describes their humanity, and it isn't considered genetic in the same way as heritable traits here. Humanities are a normal feature of Ryne, and have been for as long as anyone can remember. These features are not limited to e.g. magic users, but are a core part of everybody's day-to-day experience. For most people, spirit and body are still joined.