The Athenaeum

A city sized library staffed by autonomous mana crystal powered dragonfly-like drones referred to simply as Indexes, the Athenaeum is split up into three different rings, the center of which houses the Watchers immortal leaders along with several sleeping quarters, training grounds, workshops for the engineers, food storage and preparation area's, etc; while the other two are devoted entirely towards information storage. Speaking of information storage, rather than using books or scrolls that can rot away over time, the Watchers employ coal colored metal cubes with crimson highlights called Codex's that are capable of having information transcribed onto them via Oculari-palm sized bronze spheres covered in arcane etchings-the standard recording device used by all Watchers out in Vrenorza. It is also here that the most advanced of Draetorin magitech resides, keeping the great city-library suspended in the middle of a massive sinkhole at the center of the realm into which the infinite sea drains.

In order to travel to and from the Athenaeum, Quaerens-men and women whose mission is to venture out into Vrenorza to gather knowledge and supplies-use Porta; magical gauntlets traditionally worn on the right hand, underneath a sleeve or other such article of clothing. Powered by mana crystals, like much of the technology they employ, the device has three primary buttons that control its three main functions. The first button acts as the main way of recharging the device. Holding a mana crystal in the hand on which the glove is worn, the user would then press the purplish button on its right side to initiate the energy siphoning process. Once this is done, the crystal will have either shrunk significantly-as energy was drained-or vanished entirely if all its energy reserves have been used up. In regards to the other two buttons, each one serves an individual purpose. The one closest to the wearers elbow transports them back to a designated arrival room in the Athenaeum, while the one closer to the users hand sends them to a random location in Vrenorza, generally the outskirts of a well known city or some other such remote place. It should be noted that these gloves can be destroyed as well and rendered as useless as they would be if they had ran out of charge.

On the opposite side of this however, the Orāre use standard portal magics as they are trained to rely on it more than anything else. Quaerens, however, are far too varied in terms of personal skills in order for this to be an effective means of transport, hence the need for Porta.

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The Plane Itself

A plane of endless stormy seas and troubled gray skies, Aroth is a strange realm to say the least. Its history unknown, even the Watchers have not yet figured out just who or what made this place, nor who may or may not have inhabited it before them.