Hearth, Coderra, and the Divine War

27 Jun, 2025

Editorial Note: Hearth was generic, which was great for my table (it sounds like Earth which I liked), but not so good for making it searchable. I've given it a unique name, Coderra.

Let's get some definition of the divine war that ruined the world of Coderra. These are maybe Distinctions, maybe Overview. But they are ill-defined: the principle of Filling Space, Leaving Blanks is a principle that not only applies to the actual map but to all of the setting. Coderra is an anti-canon setting.

The Death of Death

It is well understood how the Godwar started. The God of the Endings for the Halcyon Empire¹ died and yet did not end. Whether the God of Endings could not or would not die is an unanswered question, but they died and yet did not.

This Undeath of Death began the unraveling of the world. Not immediately, suspect the scholars, but that's where it started. Slowly, the divine world began to slip into uncertainty and chaos.

The Godwar

When war broke out amongst the gods, it was brutal. Some pantheons split in half, some did not, but none escaped the wages of violence. Most gods were broken or killed, and the few who survived were changed or sent into hiding.

The war was cataclysmic, featuring weapons of death and destruction never seen before. The smith gods created new weapons and ships that twisted the very fabric of reality. The war raged across the High Heavens and Fallen Hells. The war broke Coderra.

I'm envisioning that the true factions in the Godwar are unknowable to mortals, but that mortal philosophers have ideas that are pretty close to reality. The main two factions were those of Continuity and Release: Some of the gods wanted a return to the status quo, other gods felt that the time of the gods was ending or transitioning and that the old ways needed to die.

The Crown

Nobody knows what the Crown² is, but everybody knows that it is. The Crown is a ring in the sky, a celestial body born out of the Godwar. Usually appearing as a ring of fire or bone, but sometimes of gems or iron or thorns, but always as a ring. Sometimes close, sometimes far away.

Always bad.

The Crown is a portent, a harbinger of chaos and unwelcome change. The Crown warps the world. It brings with it the echoes of the thoughts of gods, the shadows of divine intent. Where there was a forest, there is now a dead forest. Where there was a valley, now there is a valley where nothing can die. Where there is a mountain, now there is a desert where dreams come true.

I envision the Crown as analogous to the initial problem presented in Three Body Problem - sages throughout Coderra work to predict the Crown, but they always fail.

Okay, that's the divine war stuff. Death of death, the war, the Crowns. Next I need to lock down on some magic mechanics, then maybe start building out a premise for a campaign and a city to go with it.