Worlds of Beru Overview
Basic Concept
Over the decades of running role-playing gaming campaigns since 1979 to current, I created a number of custom settings, but over time, these and published settings began to have more interrelationship as higher level characters began to cross between the veils of the multiverse and experience completely different universes with different laws for physics, magic, pantheons, etc.
Over time, in the late 1980s, borrowing (and unabashedly using directly) various ideas from Michael Moorcock's concept of the eternal champion, J.R.R. Tolkien's Lost Tales, the various Arhurian legends, Fritz Leiber's Fafhd & Gray Mouser, and many other works, and other settings that included traversal experiences across multiple planes.
Beru is in effect at a pivotal crucible point where the fabric of separation between the multiverses is exceptionally thin. One can literally travel the misted seas and end up in diverse settings with such alternate realities as the Arthurian legends, Gygax's Greyhawk and Arneson's Blackmoor, the Forgotten Realms, Leiber's Nehwon, the Ancient Greece Olympian, Roman, Norse, Finnish, Central American, Melnibonean, Cthulhian, Wagnerian, Middle-earth, Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Babylonian, Sumerian, Chinese, and a nearly infinite number of others.
Often players are introduced to this world first from some common setting (Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms for example), and end up in the strange worlds of Beru, often transiting to another setting through it. Other campaigns I begin the players in one of the many continents with some background for why they are already there, and then they explore the nearly limitless possibilities, slowly learning the key routes (and trying not to become forever lost) allowing travel to specific settings/worlds/universes.
The Five Continents and The Many Isles
The core of the Worlds of Beru consists of 5 major continents, many larger and smaller islands, and island chains, all separated by The Mists.
Any sailors not knowing the few safe routes through the mists to the other lands of Beru, generally end up lost forever, though there are stories of some that have found their way back many years later after visiting lands, and even entire worlds, radically different than those found on the Five Lands or the Many Isles. Loremasters claim that the mists are a weakness in the fabric of the universe, and that those getting lost, wandering too far off the few safe routes, were actually going to other facets of other universes and worlds.
Beru
Adjective for "true".
True Worlds, Worlds of the True.
Noun for the essence of existence, some equate this to an abstract form of deific presence, while others just consider it "the universe", or more accurately the "multiverse". Some worship it as a single less-abstract deity, calling themselves The Beru Followers (the "true" followers), or just "The Followers".
The Followers
Most people are nervous when around members of The Beru Followers. In their purist pursuit of "What is true", they try to avoid (as much as mortally possible) any concepts of "right or wrong", and focus as much as possible on "what is". This attempted lack of any established mortality concepts is very disruptive to most cultures that have well defined rules. Some of The Followers choose a very pacifist route, while others think a more aggressive approach is a more efficient path towards determining what is true or not. Some even resort to extreme torture, claiming that no one, not even oneself, can know their true self, until they are under extreme duress, only then can their true self be found...
Myths & Legends
The holders of lore have many tales about the creation of the Worlds of Beru.
The men of old from the early tribes, called by some the unimane (old men), hold the earliest known stories about Beru.
They say there once was a giant called Tabuararikitiki, and his footprints can be found at several locations, only a few of which are in Beru. However, he is said to have chosen Beru as his home world in his later years. Many lands claim their island (or continent) was once his his personal property.
The newer lore masters call some special landmarks "Craters", while others call them "The Footprints of Tabuararikitiki", or just Giant Tabu.
In a traditional story of the creation, Navarereau (neither male nor female, but also containing elements of both) created The Worlds, then created the peoples of Beru first represented by Taburimai and Rikitiki who were the first man and his wife. Settlement of Beru could have sprung from the disastrous comet thousands of years ago, was caught and shaped through song by Navarereau, to create a safe place for his first children.
To warm the ball of ice in the Abyss, Navarereau tore off it's hair, bundled it into a ball, then singing, willed it to catch fire, thus creating the first of the manyfold suns, with the stars being the sparks flying off into the Abyss.
The first land on this ice-water-world was called Saverara, created from the smallest flake of skin from Navarereau.
To provide sustenance, Navarereau gave of itself a single eyelash and sprouted the "Tree of Life", singing it into independent growth.
Taburimai and Rikitiki's first child was Tauararikitiki (the Giant Tabu).
When Tabu grew, he became bored with the relatively small land, and wandered farther and farther from their home...
One night, while his parents slept, he tore a large branch from the Tree of Life and quickly carved it into a huge canoe, and then paddled across the seas.
Due to the nature of the wood, mists began to spring up behind Tabu as he paddled, and before long he was lost within the mists. Then one day, as his hunger was terrible, his canoe struck land. He thought he had come full circle and found his family, but instead found a completely different land and world. As he walked the land, leaving the canoe behind for the moment, he cleared the mists and saw that the skies were completely different colors, and there were strange peoples and creatures scattered across the land, many seeming tiny as ants to his great form, but he was curious and noticed them, though sometimes crushing them inadvertently. After exploring the reaches of this land, gathering such food stores as he could, he returned to the canoe, and once again paddled into the seas, once again the mists drew about. Once again, after his food had run out, and he was near death from thirst and hunger, he struck land. These lands were even stranger than the one before. Here he was small as a mouse compared to the peoples and creatures the trod the lands.
Some legends claim he never found his home, while others claim he finally returned to Beru, and never dared leave again after eons of being lost. But both tales tell that he never found his parents again.
Karituta the conqueror
The 900 (men).
The 99 Canoes (each 60' long & 7' wide), and 40' long outriggers.
Nuakeia the Divinator
The Lands of Nikunuanu
Tabiteutatea Island
(Tah-bee-tay-oo-tah-tay-ah)
The 33 Stone Men of Tabiteutatea
Twice the height of ordinary men.
The stone men "armed" with spears and placed to "defend" the islet, looked like warriors of colossal stature across the island.
Chief Kourabihad
Shattered Twin Islands
of Tamenuko and Tekebwabwa
Takenuko
Tekebwabwa
Tobara The Crabber
The Lands of Nunuotiti
Tabariria, Queen of The South
Alabalang Isle
Meireikara Isle (May-ee-ray-ee-kah-rah)
The Scattered Atolls
Baturatira and Makakina, the two most significant of the many.
Baturatira
Makakina
Mankgiata and the 66
The Guardians of the scattered Atolls
The Conquered Kings of Abianana
(Ah-bee-ah-nah-nah)
Niu Islands
THE DESCENDANTS OF UARARI
When Uarari had cut off all the branches of the Tree of Matoa, he left that land and went North to ______
There lived Neti Anginima.
2 children borh.
1st Teh Antaomamiti (the half-spirit-half-man).
2nd Nah Babarou (the traveller)
After those children were born, Uarari said to his wife, 'Woman, let us go to my kalhingat (house-place) which is at Banabato.
She prevented him not: they arose and got up on their canoe named Tebare-na-kia-na-bitu-na-Beru (Summit-of-tree-of-swiftness-of-Beru).
When they arrived at Banabato, these were the ancestors who landed with them - Nen Tabebu, Keutobe, Nemekiane, Nung Kubatia, Nua Toberata, Ne Menanamita; and their leader (motonewe) was Nua Angenemiao.
It was these who portioned out the land, and lived in the three places Biangta, Amu, and Baukinokai.
Their children live there to this day; and the fourth place is Tabawawe, where live the children of Tabakethaa and Titaubine, who remained on Banabato when Auriaria and Natareau went voyaging.
Neti Tehariha of Banabato
The first child of Nua Angenamiu was Tea Antameomiti.
His seed was Tea Banu Inta (the Breed of Spirits) who had mastery over the wind, and some over the rain, and some over the sunshine.
These spirits are forever at variance between themselves, and thus it is that sometimes the rain wins the victory on Banabato and sometimes it is conquered by the drought.
From the Breed of Spirits sprang the Breed of Birds, which live in the branches of the Kanawato tree.
From the Breed of Birds sprang the Breed of Men.
Tabawewa's Account of the Coming of the Settlers of Beru
Nea Toetaniteka of Banabato
Uarari was about to rest upon his land of Banabato, so he began to set it in order.
He overturned it, and threw it away to eastward; it fell in the sea, and lo, it became the Islands of Manatama.
And after that, Uarari set a fence around his land (i.e. the fringing reef); he set a guard of canoes about it.
Not a strange canoe must come near the land; if one appeared, it perished; if another appeared, it perished.
But after a time, a canoe from Beru appeared, and the people on it were Neh Kuotabe, and Neh Menanamieta; and Nia Angenemeao, and Nia Tobereta.
That canoe did allow Uarari to approach; he brought it to shore, for he wished to make his land more populous.
And at the first coming of the people of that canoe, they had no wives.
They were able to marry only when they met with the people of Uarari, even the Banu Inta (the Breed of Spirits), on Banabato.
And the man Neh Kuotabe got his wife from Tabawewa from among the people of Uarari, after he had fixed a date to meet them on the mirae of Tabawewa.
And this was what the canoe from Beru did, when first it came to Banabato from over the sea; it came to shore, and its people hasten to measure out the foreshore in a circle around the island.
Each man was master of his portion.
And while they were busy measuring out the foreshore, Uarari watched them encircling the island.
Then he parted from them and went to his own place of Tabawewa; and they came ashore, and they sought their wives from among the inhabitants of Banabato.
And afterwards, they again met together with Uarari at the place called Uarekaea, and they made a council with him.
And this was the judgment made in that council.
Each man who came from over the sea should be master of his portion of the foreshore.
But as for those of Tabawewa, the first people of Banabato and the true inhabitants of the land, they abided their time, and their time arrived.
Followers of Beru
Seekers of what is "true".
