The planet got blown up, and it wasn’t our fault. We’re calling it the Upspring - a massive flood of light, or crystal, or water, or whatever it looks like to you, erupted out of the ground, splitting our planet completely in half, northwest to southeast across Nepal’s northern border, bisecting poor Mount Everest in the process. A vast, cosmic wall of magic - not radiation, Magic - flowing across reality, changing the sundered world, mindlessly and unpredictably.
Things shifted. Humanity most immediately, hard and fast, some more than others but enough that the word “human” all but lost its meaning. We figured out what happened to the rest afterward. Still are, in places. (expand- awkward) Plants, animals, rocks. Oil’s too dangerous to be useful, now. Hungry. And let’s not get into what happens when that magic mixes with radiation. When we say magic’s everywhere, we mean everywhere.
We haven’t fully recovered - getting the world cut in half was only the beginning, and magic making a reappearance brought a lot of new dangers with it. An estimated three billion dead makes it hard to bounce back. Countries disappeared practically overnight, others got restructured or replaced. But we make the most of it. Worked out how to put magic to use for us, making it our new energy source, even figured out how to beat it into our machines to make them more effective. The Upspring might have blown us back a century or two in some ways, but our technology has leapt forward just as far in others.
Commercial space flight is a regular thing now - sort of has to be, to get over the Wall - not that we’re any closer to traveling the stars. The old fantasy of colonies on the moon is also going to stay a fantasy. The less we have to do with the moons - either one of the damned things - the better. The shard islands floating around the Wall do have cities on them, however, almost by necessity. Mages with their observatories to study the Wall, port towns facilitating travel and trade between the sundered halves. Some of them have managed to do well enough that they’ve even formed their own independent city-states, like New Honolulu.
The New Hono Anchor Complex might not be the biggest in the skies, but it’s definitely growing. Plenty of work for anyone who needs it, legal or not. Smuggling, salvaging, monster hunting, all have a presence in that sheltered harbor.
Welcome to Worldbreaker, a post-apocalyptic urban fantasy roleplay set on a contemporary Earth split in half by the return of magic. It’s become a world where guns are magic implements, oil is haunted by the ghosts of dinosaurs, scavengers use scraped together mecha to fight monsters, and magic and radiation mix to spawn strange new lifeforms.
Salvage old world tech for repair and resale or hunt monsters to feed the neighborhood, but be aware you aren’t the most dangerous thing stalking the ruins. Immerse yourself in the world of magic, just keep your head above the surface. Explore just how much the world has been changed by the Upspring, or just do what you can to make rent this month. The new world is your oyster, the story yours to create.
Just don’t look at the moon.
DO NOT post a character without receiving proper approval from a GM. Anyone who does so will not be considered.
Things shifted. Humanity most immediately, hard and fast, some more than others but enough that the word “human” all but lost its meaning. We figured out what happened to the rest afterward. Still are, in places. (expand- awkward) Plants, animals, rocks. Oil’s too dangerous to be useful, now. Hungry. And let’s not get into what happens when that magic mixes with radiation. When we say magic’s everywhere, we mean everywhere.
We haven’t fully recovered - getting the world cut in half was only the beginning, and magic making a reappearance brought a lot of new dangers with it. An estimated three billion dead makes it hard to bounce back. Countries disappeared practically overnight, others got restructured or replaced. But we make the most of it. Worked out how to put magic to use for us, making it our new energy source, even figured out how to beat it into our machines to make them more effective. The Upspring might have blown us back a century or two in some ways, but our technology has leapt forward just as far in others.
Commercial space flight is a regular thing now - sort of has to be, to get over the Wall - not that we’re any closer to traveling the stars. The old fantasy of colonies on the moon is also going to stay a fantasy. The less we have to do with the moons - either one of the damned things - the better. The shard islands floating around the Wall do have cities on them, however, almost by necessity. Mages with their observatories to study the Wall, port towns facilitating travel and trade between the sundered halves. Some of them have managed to do well enough that they’ve even formed their own independent city-states, like New Honolulu.
The New Hono Anchor Complex might not be the biggest in the skies, but it’s definitely growing. Plenty of work for anyone who needs it, legal or not. Smuggling, salvaging, monster hunting, all have a presence in that sheltered harbor.
Welcome to Worldbreaker, a post-apocalyptic urban fantasy roleplay set on a contemporary Earth split in half by the return of magic. It’s become a world where guns are magic implements, oil is haunted by the ghosts of dinosaurs, scavengers use scraped together mecha to fight monsters, and magic and radiation mix to spawn strange new lifeforms.
Salvage old world tech for repair and resale or hunt monsters to feed the neighborhood, but be aware you aren’t the most dangerous thing stalking the ruins. Immerse yourself in the world of magic, just keep your head above the surface. Explore just how much the world has been changed by the Upspring, or just do what you can to make rent this month. The new world is your oyster, the story yours to create.
Just don’t look at the moon.
DO NOT post a character without receiving proper approval from a GM. Anyone who does so will not be considered.
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[color=INSERT HEX CODE HERE]《 NAME HERE 》[/color]
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A P P E A R A N C E:
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- General physical description. Height, weight, etc. Along with a brief description of their choice of clothing style and any notable body modifications.
Gestalt Morph:
(Not everybody is a bog standard human anymore. list what makes your character different. even if its simple like "Elf" or "Mermaid" so long as you make mention of any other major bodily differences. Such as elemental expressions on their skin, any number of extra eyes, the list goes on. some are more fantastical or simple then others. you could just have a tail! If you are a big-standard human, put “Ur-Gestalt”.)" [insert character quote] "
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B I O G R A P H Y:
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- A relatively brief description of the character’s life and profession. with a focus on more defining moments, people, and/or places. The kind of thing someone might find just by looking it up.
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P E R S O N A L I T Y:
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[color=INSERT HEX CODE HERE]❖[/color] Fathom level: (either numerically 1-5, or using a low-moderate-high-exceptional rating, depending on what form of rating test your character has had.) [color=INSERT HEX CODE HERE]❖[/color] (Prominent magic type/category. ie Pyromancy, clairvoyance.) [color=INSERT HEX CODE HERE]❖[/color]
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C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:
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FAQ Lore Directory
What’s a Gestalt?
The changes brought by the Upspring rendered old socio-political concepts such as race largely defunct. It’s difficult to build systems of power and social identity around skin color when your neighbor is an anthropomorphic lion. “Gestalt”, or “form”, is essentially the new term to describe what you became (for those thirty and older) or were born as.
Demographics will vary based on location, but as a point of reference, in New Honolulu about 30-35% of the population are Ur-Gestalt - which is to say, they didn’t change, and still look the way people used to. Next most common would be the Therians, Gestalts that look like anthropomorphic animals or possess physical traits of animals. People call themselves what they like, but in official documentation these would be declared as (animal)-Therian. Cat-Therian, Dog-Therian, Wasp-Therian, Snake-Therian, Cattle-Therian, so on and so forth. Therians are the only ones grouped under a collective banner like this.
Elemental Gestalts are the least common, and come in Fire, Water, and Wood flavors, the Shui-Mu-Huo. In Muslim areas, Fire Gestalts are often called Djinn, and they’re apparently pretty common in Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Wood Gestalts apparently like using “Dryad”, and Water Gestalts call themselves Merfolk pretty regularly in English-speaking areas.
You also have your Gestalts who look like old school fantasy races - your elves, dwarves, goblins, etc. Some of these guys, elves especially, like to call themselves “Ancients” or “Fae-Kin”. Everyone else calls them “losers”.
So if “race” isn’t a thing anymore, what about ethnicity?
You’re really asking if people stopped keeping track of their heritage?
What’s a “Fathom Rating”?
A measure of how deep you can immerse yourself in magic without drowning. A FR of 1 is the baseline needed to live with the ambient magic of the world, and most people have a FR of 2 or 3. Anyone claiming to have higher than a 5 is probably delusional. The scale is measured in exponents, and is generally tested around early puberty now. Though to be honest, this kind of specificity is only really important to mages. Most people just use the "Low-Medium-High" rating system.
...Drowning?
This is covered more in the section on magic, but basically if you take too much magic into yourself, you’ll drown (or Drown, depending on how much emphasis you want to put on the term). It’s the main risk inherent to the study of magic in earnest. If you aren’t interested in full magehood, just stick to the inscribed bullets they sell.
The changes brought by the Upspring rendered old socio-political concepts such as race largely defunct. It’s difficult to build systems of power and social identity around skin color when your neighbor is an anthropomorphic lion. “Gestalt”, or “form”, is essentially the new term to describe what you became (for those thirty and older) or were born as.
Demographics will vary based on location, but as a point of reference, in New Honolulu about 30-35% of the population are Ur-Gestalt - which is to say, they didn’t change, and still look the way people used to. Next most common would be the Therians, Gestalts that look like anthropomorphic animals or possess physical traits of animals. People call themselves what they like, but in official documentation these would be declared as (animal)-Therian. Cat-Therian, Dog-Therian, Wasp-Therian, Snake-Therian, Cattle-Therian, so on and so forth. Therians are the only ones grouped under a collective banner like this.
Elemental Gestalts are the least common, and come in Fire, Water, and Wood flavors, the Shui-Mu-Huo. In Muslim areas, Fire Gestalts are often called Djinn, and they’re apparently pretty common in Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Wood Gestalts apparently like using “Dryad”, and Water Gestalts call themselves Merfolk pretty regularly in English-speaking areas.
You also have your Gestalts who look like old school fantasy races - your elves, dwarves, goblins, etc. Some of these guys, elves especially, like to call themselves “Ancients” or “Fae-Kin”. Everyone else calls them “losers”.
So if “race” isn’t a thing anymore, what about ethnicity?
You’re really asking if people stopped keeping track of their heritage?
What’s a “Fathom Rating”?
A measure of how deep you can immerse yourself in magic without drowning. A FR of 1 is the baseline needed to live with the ambient magic of the world, and most people have a FR of 2 or 3. Anyone claiming to have higher than a 5 is probably delusional. The scale is measured in exponents, and is generally tested around early puberty now. Though to be honest, this kind of specificity is only really important to mages. Most people just use the "Low-Medium-High" rating system.
...Drowning?
This is covered more in the section on magic, but basically if you take too much magic into yourself, you’ll drown (or Drown, depending on how much emphasis you want to put on the term). It’s the main risk inherent to the study of magic in earnest. If you aren’t interested in full magehood, just stick to the inscribed bullets they sell.
Just what was the Upspring?
As the High Mages who study such things would have it, magic has always been in existence, growing and receding in cycles. The calamity that split the Earth in two was only the most recent case of the magical flow waxing into reality, and it did so explosively that it’s unlikely to ever truly wane again. Like a spring bursting through the rocks which covered it and forming a river. Hence the name.
And that “river” is the Wall?
That’s a pretty literal interpretation of the metaphor. Magic is everywhere, coating the world like an ocean. The Wall - or the River, the Dragon Current, the Grand Flow, the Lifestream (it has a lot of names) - is just where it’s densest and most visible. From what I understand, most people see it as an immense wall of light, but it varies from person to person. Some see a crystal barrier, others a vast sea climbing into the sky. Asking someone else what the Wall looks like for them is a good way to make small talk. Just, uh, don’t get too close if you live nearby. Like any sea, it’s got stuff in it.
...Stuff?
Don’t worry about it.
So how exactly is Fathom Rating measured? Is it actually important?
Yes, it can be extremely important depending on your profession and where you are. Certain areas have higher magic density than others, and while the standard background radiation of magic won’t bother most people, some areas can kill people outright if their FR is too low. Luckily, there are “depth suits” that can help you resist drowning if you need to go to these locations for whatever reason, but it’s still something you should keep in mind when you’re travelling. And obviously, mages are going to want to know their FR so they don’t accidentally drown themselves with sloppy or brute force spelling.
To answer your first question, there are two main methods of testing Fathom Rating: the water method, which is used for kids, and the blood method, which is typically only done by mages and hardcore salvagers.
For the water method, a crystalized magical focus (typically a stone or jewel) suspended in water is given to the subject, who is directed to concentrate on the stone for a minute or two. The luminosity and color intensity of the crystal is used to determine their FR based on the Low-Medium-High scale, while any reactive effects can be used to indicate particular spellcasting inclinations the subject might have. A lot of people use the color of their focus as a sort of astrology sign, and there’s a budding cottage industry around making merchandise specific to whatever color you may have gotten.
The blood method is used to determine the more specific numbered ratings, but a lot of people find it unpleasant, so it isn’t used as often, despite being the standard less than a decade ago. Blood is drawn from the subject, before being deposited in a container and exposed to controlled streams of magic until it crystallizes. When it destabilizes, that indicates how much magic you can immerse yourself in or take into your body before you drown. People who have this test done report that it can… hurt. Apparently there’s a degree of synchronicity between the sample and subject. They say they can feel their blood, despite being removed from their body. Fun stuff. Pretty much mandatory for dedicated mages.
So, how does magic actually work? How does FR come into play?
Have you used a computer before? Ever gotten into coding? Magic is like that. Spellcraft is, at its most basic, a kind of code you use to write your will onto reality, with magic providing you with both the energy source and the canvas to make it happen. The more demanding a specific function of your spell, the more magic is required to do it. And just like a computer has a limited amount of gpu and RAM to run programs with, your fragile, fleshy (probably) little human body can only pull so much magic through it before overloading. That limit is your Fathom rating.
This might sound on the surface like a low FR means you can do less magic, with higher ratings naturally allowing for more powerful mages. This is wrong. The only difference between a high FR and a low FR is the amount of efficiency and optimization you need to put into your spells to achieve the same result. There’s something of a common sentiment among magic circles that a high Fathom rating actually producers worse mages - being able to brute force your effects by throwing more magic at them often leads to sloppy, unrefined spelling, and this kind of complacency results in an overall less subtle, more unrefined mage. These types of mages tend to get called “drownings in progress” behind their backs.
So no, your FR doesn’t impact your ability or quality as a mage, but it has everything to do with approach. Anyone can learn to use magic, but it takes a keen and clever mind to become a proper, skilled mage. Carelessness and arrogance leads to overdraw, which leads to drowning.
How much magic can a person learn?
As much as they like, within the bounds of their Fathom rating. A computer can only hold so many files, and a mage can only know so many spells. You’ll have to forget some if you want to learn others. That’s why a lot of mages keep spell books, so they don’t have to remember everything.
Wait, so I can drown not just from using too much magic, but also knowing too much magic?
Yeah. Have fun with that.
So, what’s Drowning?
It’s what it sounds like. Pulling so much magic into yourself that it starts to choke you. Scarring your body, overwhelming your mind, losing yourself. Drowning isn’t necessarily a death sentence - it’s possible to start drowning, and still get pulled back up to the surface. You will never come back from this unscathed, however. It isn’t uncommon to see inexperienced mages with signs of it. Eyes glowing with fire, lightning scars tracing across their veins, incongruous body parts, ink-stained skin stretching up their arms or over their face. Considering the alternative, you’re lucky to get away with just a third eye or spikes growing from your back.
And if you don’t get pulled back?
You become a demon.
So drowning means you get possessed?
No. A demon is a shade of living magic, puppeteered by the remains of a shattered human consciousness. It’s not an outside entity moving in when you slip up, it’s you. Just not… you. A reflection made by the shattered glass of who you used to be. The ghost of your personality, trapped in a funhouse mirror maze, intentions and desires shifting by the moment based on what direction it’s looking in, warped beyond all possible recognition.
The Drowned aren’t monsters, they aren’t spirits, they’re corpses. Even if you meet one, even if it speaks to you, that person it was is dead, and what remains is fully unreasonable. It might help you in the moment, but that might change minute by minute without warning and without purpose. Don’t become a demon. Keep your head above the surface.
As the High Mages who study such things would have it, magic has always been in existence, growing and receding in cycles. The calamity that split the Earth in two was only the most recent case of the magical flow waxing into reality, and it did so explosively that it’s unlikely to ever truly wane again. Like a spring bursting through the rocks which covered it and forming a river. Hence the name.
And that “river” is the Wall?
That’s a pretty literal interpretation of the metaphor. Magic is everywhere, coating the world like an ocean. The Wall - or the River, the Dragon Current, the Grand Flow, the Lifestream (it has a lot of names) - is just where it’s densest and most visible. From what I understand, most people see it as an immense wall of light, but it varies from person to person. Some see a crystal barrier, others a vast sea climbing into the sky. Asking someone else what the Wall looks like for them is a good way to make small talk. Just, uh, don’t get too close if you live nearby. Like any sea, it’s got stuff in it.
...Stuff?
Don’t worry about it.
So how exactly is Fathom Rating measured? Is it actually important?
Yes, it can be extremely important depending on your profession and where you are. Certain areas have higher magic density than others, and while the standard background radiation of magic won’t bother most people, some areas can kill people outright if their FR is too low. Luckily, there are “depth suits” that can help you resist drowning if you need to go to these locations for whatever reason, but it’s still something you should keep in mind when you’re travelling. And obviously, mages are going to want to know their FR so they don’t accidentally drown themselves with sloppy or brute force spelling.
To answer your first question, there are two main methods of testing Fathom Rating: the water method, which is used for kids, and the blood method, which is typically only done by mages and hardcore salvagers.
For the water method, a crystalized magical focus (typically a stone or jewel) suspended in water is given to the subject, who is directed to concentrate on the stone for a minute or two. The luminosity and color intensity of the crystal is used to determine their FR based on the Low-Medium-High scale, while any reactive effects can be used to indicate particular spellcasting inclinations the subject might have. A lot of people use the color of their focus as a sort of astrology sign, and there’s a budding cottage industry around making merchandise specific to whatever color you may have gotten.
The blood method is used to determine the more specific numbered ratings, but a lot of people find it unpleasant, so it isn’t used as often, despite being the standard less than a decade ago. Blood is drawn from the subject, before being deposited in a container and exposed to controlled streams of magic until it crystallizes. When it destabilizes, that indicates how much magic you can immerse yourself in or take into your body before you drown. People who have this test done report that it can… hurt. Apparently there’s a degree of synchronicity between the sample and subject. They say they can feel their blood, despite being removed from their body. Fun stuff. Pretty much mandatory for dedicated mages.
So, how does magic actually work? How does FR come into play?
Have you used a computer before? Ever gotten into coding? Magic is like that. Spellcraft is, at its most basic, a kind of code you use to write your will onto reality, with magic providing you with both the energy source and the canvas to make it happen. The more demanding a specific function of your spell, the more magic is required to do it. And just like a computer has a limited amount of gpu and RAM to run programs with, your fragile, fleshy (probably) little human body can only pull so much magic through it before overloading. That limit is your Fathom rating.
This might sound on the surface like a low FR means you can do less magic, with higher ratings naturally allowing for more powerful mages. This is wrong. The only difference between a high FR and a low FR is the amount of efficiency and optimization you need to put into your spells to achieve the same result. There’s something of a common sentiment among magic circles that a high Fathom rating actually producers worse mages - being able to brute force your effects by throwing more magic at them often leads to sloppy, unrefined spelling, and this kind of complacency results in an overall less subtle, more unrefined mage. These types of mages tend to get called “drownings in progress” behind their backs.
So no, your FR doesn’t impact your ability or quality as a mage, but it has everything to do with approach. Anyone can learn to use magic, but it takes a keen and clever mind to become a proper, skilled mage. Carelessness and arrogance leads to overdraw, which leads to drowning.
How much magic can a person learn?
As much as they like, within the bounds of their Fathom rating. A computer can only hold so many files, and a mage can only know so many spells. You’ll have to forget some if you want to learn others. That’s why a lot of mages keep spell books, so they don’t have to remember everything.
Wait, so I can drown not just from using too much magic, but also knowing too much magic?
Yeah. Have fun with that.
So, what’s Drowning?
It’s what it sounds like. Pulling so much magic into yourself that it starts to choke you. Scarring your body, overwhelming your mind, losing yourself. Drowning isn’t necessarily a death sentence - it’s possible to start drowning, and still get pulled back up to the surface. You will never come back from this unscathed, however. It isn’t uncommon to see inexperienced mages with signs of it. Eyes glowing with fire, lightning scars tracing across their veins, incongruous body parts, ink-stained skin stretching up their arms or over their face. Considering the alternative, you’re lucky to get away with just a third eye or spikes growing from your back.
And if you don’t get pulled back?
You become a demon.
So drowning means you get possessed?
No. A demon is a shade of living magic, puppeteered by the remains of a shattered human consciousness. It’s not an outside entity moving in when you slip up, it’s you. Just not… you. A reflection made by the shattered glass of who you used to be. The ghost of your personality, trapped in a funhouse mirror maze, intentions and desires shifting by the moment based on what direction it’s looking in, warped beyond all possible recognition.
The Drowned aren’t monsters, they aren’t spirits, they’re corpses. Even if you meet one, even if it speaks to you, that person it was is dead, and what remains is fully unreasonable. It might help you in the moment, but that might change minute by minute without warning and without purpose. Don’t become a demon. Keep your head above the surface.
So… Magitech?
So Magitech.
It’s the modern era’s response to people returning to astral monke. Utilizing a mixture of four variables: The size of the magitech, the quality of the magic-coding, the intricacy of the engraving runes, and how Deep (how much magic can be infused into the material; i.e. Deepend Aluminum being a frequent choice for civilian grade magitech.) the material can go.
Afterwards, it’s a matter of— thanks to the Upspring— some relatively simple surgeries with relatively simple recovery periods. We aren’t quite yet at “clinics might as well be barber shops” stage, but it’s not terribly unusual to see someone with a replacement limb.
Or it’s a matter of finding a big enough Crystal to fit into a chassis or frame composed of even more intricate and complex wards, armor plates, and reinforcement engravings.
Sorry, what was that about chassis and frames?
Magitech also covers, beyond just prosthetic limbs, things like power armor, volt-gun turrets, spider-tanks, and even Huntswomen Mecha Chariots.
Yes. There are mecha. Topping out at around 10 meters (30 feet for those of you who grew up in the old U.S.), these towering pieces of magitech are what we use to combat the kaiju of the Atomic Zones. More on that elsewhere.
More commonly seen though, are Exo-Suits. Which can range between 8 to 12 feet in height. No less capable of duking it out with the larger denizens of the new world, but nowhere near the same level of a proper Mecha.
They can appear in many ways, from bodysuits, to exo-skeletal frames, to car sized suits of armor. Each is customizable, and almost no exo-suit is quite the same as another. Unless it’s from a company. Which most are.
Magitech on this scale can’t really be treated all that similarly to magisthetics (or prosthetic limbs).
Often, Magitech on this scale bears multiple housing points for Magic Crystal Rods as their fuel sources. Alongside a massive Crystal Cortex, sized between a grapefruit and a beach ball, that acts as a focus for the countless enhancements arrayed across the ‘Tech in question.
So… What’s the catch with Magitech prosthetics?
Short Answer: Time. Money. Material scarcity.
Very Long Answer: Magitech puts a relatively low strain on the physical and psychological side of its interaction with civilization, prosthetics especially. Just about anyone at any age can be outfitted with it! Two of the only real catches are time and money. Magitech requires specific materials, which take varied lengths of time to create.
‘Tech also requires some pretty in-depth enchanting and coding. Whether it’s an arm made from “Mithril” (aka Deep Iron, more on that soon), the shield of a monster hunter, or the cannon of a security-exo, they all require in-depth enchantments to truly make them work. Magic itself can be rather capricious, so it often takes a certain type of individual to engrave intent onto objects for them to disobey the laws of physics.
At present, most people who get magisthetics get, at most, only their limbs replaced during their lifetime. The resurgence of magic makes it so that the chances of physical rejection are extraordinarily low. The same can’t be said for those who decide to get a “direct link” into whatever Magitech can be linked in such a manner. Think of spinal or cranial ports for an exosuit or information crystals, or direct plug-in to your computer.
Let me ask you some questions: What makes you you? How quickly do you adapt to stress? Do you think you’ll quickly get over a part of yourself being ‘unnatural’ as it were?
Doesn’t matter! As per usual, we find a solution with magic. The brain is ridiculously adaptable, and magic is a startlingly flexible workhorse. Mental-Magic might be supremely illegal to practice without an absolute imperial ton of red tape, but when applied to the purposes of *recovery…* Well.
The soul might still need some time to adjust, but, well. Soul-affecting phenomena are rare occurrences aside from oil-bound wraiths or moonstruck, so the soul adjusts quickly, and the mind follows suit. The body might be sore for a few days, but it’s no less adept at making a swift comeback.
Sorry, that was a lot. Mithril? Material scarcity?
As it turns out, magic can only account for so much. In order to have the best of the best in enchanted materials, you have to use ‘Deepened’ or ‘Deep’ materials.
A Deep material is any material - metal, wood, stone, clay - that has had magic cycled through it for a specific length of time, effectively “soaking” it. Through this process of cycling, quirks and inherent expressions of magic begin to percolate throughout the whole of the affected material. Thus, the material in question becomes “Deepened”.
Deep materials all show a higher tolerance for strain and wear, to say nothing of their ability to channel enchantments. The difference in material tolerance and strength between an enchanted steel blade and an enchanted Deep-Steel or Adamantium blade is a factor of four. The difference in time is waiting the eight months required for steel to Deepen. The difference in hazard is that, similar to regular ore needing the heat of a smelter to be rendered into usable metal, deepening often necessitates a work area with a high density of magic. Or more specifically, a Fathom rating of “high”, or “4”.
So Magitech.
It’s the modern era’s response to people returning to astral monke. Utilizing a mixture of four variables: The size of the magitech, the quality of the magic-coding, the intricacy of the engraving runes, and how Deep (how much magic can be infused into the material; i.e. Deepend Aluminum being a frequent choice for civilian grade magitech.) the material can go.
Afterwards, it’s a matter of— thanks to the Upspring— some relatively simple surgeries with relatively simple recovery periods. We aren’t quite yet at “clinics might as well be barber shops” stage, but it’s not terribly unusual to see someone with a replacement limb.
Or it’s a matter of finding a big enough Crystal to fit into a chassis or frame composed of even more intricate and complex wards, armor plates, and reinforcement engravings.
Sorry, what was that about chassis and frames?
Magitech also covers, beyond just prosthetic limbs, things like power armor, volt-gun turrets, spider-tanks, and even Huntswomen Mecha Chariots.
Yes. There are mecha. Topping out at around 10 meters (30 feet for those of you who grew up in the old U.S.), these towering pieces of magitech are what we use to combat the kaiju of the Atomic Zones. More on that elsewhere.
More commonly seen though, are Exo-Suits. Which can range between 8 to 12 feet in height. No less capable of duking it out with the larger denizens of the new world, but nowhere near the same level of a proper Mecha.
They can appear in many ways, from bodysuits, to exo-skeletal frames, to car sized suits of armor. Each is customizable, and almost no exo-suit is quite the same as another. Unless it’s from a company. Which most are.
Magitech on this scale can’t really be treated all that similarly to magisthetics (or prosthetic limbs).
Often, Magitech on this scale bears multiple housing points for Magic Crystal Rods as their fuel sources. Alongside a massive Crystal Cortex, sized between a grapefruit and a beach ball, that acts as a focus for the countless enhancements arrayed across the ‘Tech in question.
So… What’s the catch with Magitech prosthetics?
Short Answer: Time. Money. Material scarcity.
Very Long Answer: Magitech puts a relatively low strain on the physical and psychological side of its interaction with civilization, prosthetics especially. Just about anyone at any age can be outfitted with it! Two of the only real catches are time and money. Magitech requires specific materials, which take varied lengths of time to create.
‘Tech also requires some pretty in-depth enchanting and coding. Whether it’s an arm made from “Mithril” (aka Deep Iron, more on that soon), the shield of a monster hunter, or the cannon of a security-exo, they all require in-depth enchantments to truly make them work. Magic itself can be rather capricious, so it often takes a certain type of individual to engrave intent onto objects for them to disobey the laws of physics.
At present, most people who get magisthetics get, at most, only their limbs replaced during their lifetime. The resurgence of magic makes it so that the chances of physical rejection are extraordinarily low. The same can’t be said for those who decide to get a “direct link” into whatever Magitech can be linked in such a manner. Think of spinal or cranial ports for an exosuit or information crystals, or direct plug-in to your computer.
Let me ask you some questions: What makes you you? How quickly do you adapt to stress? Do you think you’ll quickly get over a part of yourself being ‘unnatural’ as it were?
Doesn’t matter! As per usual, we find a solution with magic. The brain is ridiculously adaptable, and magic is a startlingly flexible workhorse. Mental-Magic might be supremely illegal to practice without an absolute imperial ton of red tape, but when applied to the purposes of *recovery…* Well.
The soul might still need some time to adjust, but, well. Soul-affecting phenomena are rare occurrences aside from oil-bound wraiths or moonstruck, so the soul adjusts quickly, and the mind follows suit. The body might be sore for a few days, but it’s no less adept at making a swift comeback.
Sorry, that was a lot. Mithril? Material scarcity?
As it turns out, magic can only account for so much. In order to have the best of the best in enchanted materials, you have to use ‘Deepened’ or ‘Deep’ materials.
A Deep material is any material - metal, wood, stone, clay - that has had magic cycled through it for a specific length of time, effectively “soaking” it. Through this process of cycling, quirks and inherent expressions of magic begin to percolate throughout the whole of the affected material. Thus, the material in question becomes “Deepened”.
Deep materials all show a higher tolerance for strain and wear, to say nothing of their ability to channel enchantments. The difference in material tolerance and strength between an enchanted steel blade and an enchanted Deep-Steel or Adamantium blade is a factor of four. The difference in time is waiting the eight months required for steel to Deepen. The difference in hazard is that, similar to regular ore needing the heat of a smelter to be rendered into usable metal, deepening often necessitates a work area with a high density of magic. Or more specifically, a Fathom rating of “high”, or “4”.
What was that about dinosaur ghosts?
Yeah, oil is full of dinosaur ghosts. They’re… trapped in it, or something. We don’t really bother with the specifics. A lot of the old refined by-products like gasoline turned back to crude oil during the Upspring, and it’s alive. Millions of years trapped under the rock gave them a hell of an appetite, too, and it looks like ten out of ten food critics recommend long pig for the discerning dino’s pallette. Luckily they don’t really move around much, so as long as you avoid their hot spots you usually don’t need to deal with them that much. They’re all over the ruins, though, especially the major metropolises like the LA metroplex.
Typically if (when) you do come across these, it’ll be in one of two flavors. The first, most common, and preferable type is the legion construct. Those are scraped together amalgamations of old world tech and scrap metal, stitched together by the living pitch. These are hundreds or thousands of ghosts all glued together, moving in tandem. They’re big, not very fast, but they’ll turn you into paste if you’re too slow to jump out of the way. They’re hard to put down, if you don’t use fire, but while fire makes short work of these it also risks making the problem far worse. General practice among anyone who finds one of these is to either trap it or run from it. Trying to kill it is too big a risk.
The second type of encounter you might have with dinosaur ghosts is what happens when you burn the oil. As it may surprise you, setting fire to the chains trapping the ghosts inside has a bad habit of letting them escape. For a blessing, these ghosts are old enough that most will immediately disperse upon being freed, but it’s never all of them. There’s always a few left behind, and not being tied to an army of their fellows means they’re a lot faster and a lot less clumsy.
You see, the big problem with the dinosaur ghosts and their hunger is that ghosts are spiritual beings. A legion construct might stomp you flat, but that’s a physical attack. It only affects your body. Sure, you’ll die, but your soul is still in one piece, and you have a chance to one day walk the earth again. Freeing them from the pitch removes that mundane element of their risk. Because I kind of buried the lead when I suggested they wanted to eat your meat. A spiritual being is a spiritual threat, and a pack of unbound dinosaur ghosts will tear your soul apart like a pack of hyenas with a baby lamb. If you’re lucky, the body left behind will stumble into another legion construct and turn into its next coat of paint. If you’re not, your old meat suit gets to join the other zombies haunting the ruins, stumbling around and reacting on mindless instinct like a terrestrial jellyfish.
You mentioned kaiju?
Kaiju were mentioned, yes. So were “Atomic Zones”, and vague allusions were made to radiation mixing with magic. You can probably figure out the rest.
It mutated animals into giant monsters?
Okay, maybe you can’t.
The mixture of magic and radiation doesn’t mutate animals, it generates new life, spontaneously. These are kaiju, as in the original meaning of the word. “Strange beast”. Most aren’t much bigger than normal animals (or magical animals), but they have a tendency to grow under duress. Some of them grow a lot under duress. These are the kaiju that get hunted with mechas. It’s kind of a shame, all things considered. They can be pretty cute.
Also worth noting, despite comparing them to animals and calling them beasts, kaiju can fall pretty much anywhere in the kingdom of life. Plant kaiju are fun to deal with. Fungus kaiju aren’t.
You mentioned the moon a couple times. Or was it moons, plural?
It’s plural. There are two moons, one for each sundered half, bound to their respective sides.
Where did the second moon come from?
It didn’t. It’s the same moon, just reflected on the other side of the wall.
So it’s fake?
No, it’s real.
So what’s the deal with it? You said not to look.
Because you shouldn’t look.
Why not?
It’s bad.
I get the sense you don’t want to explain this to me.
Okay, look. The Upspring changed a lot, and not all of it was pleasant. Oil’s full of ghosts, reactors are breeding grounds for monsters, the planet got split in half, but the worst, the worst, thing to come out of magic’s return was what happened to the moon. If it seems like people don’t want to talk about it, it’s because they don’t. No one likes talking about the moon.
Okay, but what happened to it?
It’s alive. They’re alive. The moons aren’t just a big rock anymore, they’re eyes. And they like to watch. We say not to look, but that’s really just a general rule of thumb. There’s no actual harm in it, usually. But if you get in the habit of never looking, then you’ll be less likely to look it in the eye when it’s fully open, when it would actually hurt you. Because if you do look it in the eye, your only rational hope is that you have a friend on hand who can kill you before the worst happens.
...The worst?
The reason you don’t look at the moon. Metaphysical inversion. Your soul becomes physical, changing your body into something monstrous, twisting every aspect of who you were into the worst reflection of itself. We call them “Moonstruck”. Rumor has it there’s a trick to avoiding becoming one, but the only people who would know for sure are the Kizugumi moon hunters in Japan, and they aren’t keen to share. “The best way to avoid becoming moonstruck is to not look at the moon”.
For a small blessing, the moons don’t open fully nearly as often as the old lunar cycles would suggest. Observatory mages keep an eye on them as part of their job, and there’s a daily forecast with current cyclical trends published in the morning paper. So long as you’re keeping yourself in the know, you probably don’t have anything to worry about.
You’ve mentioned ghosts, monsters, and kaiju. I need to know. Are there dragons?
There are eleven dragons.
How specific.
Yeah. They’re big, and powerful, and occasionally sapient. They all look different, and can do things nothing else can. Only one of them actually looks like a traditional idea of a “dragon”, and only superficially. The word is really more of a catchall term we use for them. They don’t really seem to care.
Near as we can tell, each one corresponds with an elemental aspect. They weren’t born as such - they all kind of just appear. The mages in the observatories assume they come out of the Wall, but we’ve never actually seen them do it. They probably don’t age or breed, and we’ve never seen them eat. If they die, they just reappear somewhere else a while later.
Yes, they have names, mostly, and we number them in the order they were discovered - not necessarily the order in which they appeared, since some of them were hard to find, so that would be too difficult to determine for sure. First one to show itself is the one that best resembles a traditional western dragon - we call him Panzer, the “Flying Armory”, but he doesn’t speak. He’s definitely clever, but probably not sapient. He first showed up in the old American empire and spends his time hunting old world weapon stockpiles.
Next was the “Polyhedric Angel”, Maayan. This thing also doesn’t speak. It just kind of… sits in the Red Sea, firing jets of water at anything that gets close. Dragon hunters insist on calling it “she” for some reason, because they’re all insane. I don’t know why they call it an angel.
After Maayan was Bismarck, who’s a big flying whale. She also doesn’t talk. She’s usually pretty calm, just drifting from place to place, but she can summon some absolutely devastating hurricanes if you piss her off. Apparently she has female sex characteristics, which isn’t something anyone needed to know, but now you do. That’s also why we have to preface “don’t breed” with “probably”. Dragon hunters and observatory mages both agree this is probably just a form of mimicry, though, since a lot of dragons make themselves resemble normal animals.
Next we’ve got Omukade, the Crystal Centipede, who spends all his time sleeping around Mount Fuji. No one is really eager to wake him up, though apparently the crystals growing between the gaps of his chitin can be mined for resources. After him was Unukalhai, a big snake. Also called the Star Viper, he keeps a collection of floating islands in western China, and was the first dragon to show itself that actually talks.
Realm and Woe came right after the other, the Oak-Strong Bear and the Breaking Hind. These two follow each other in circles across Europe, and went back to not speaking. The next dragon to appear though, Hell Wasp, not only speaks, she’s downright friendly. Apparently she’s prone to loneliness, and hangs out in California surrounded by women.
Chimera, “the Mutant’s Obelisk”, is… weird. The first dragon since Maayan to appear as something non-biological, it’s a statue sprouting dozens of twisting, misshapen arms. It apparently doesn’t speak, but it does communicate, and not even the dragon hunters like getting close.
Wandering Snail is a spaceship. You can see it - or “her” - passing in front of the Wall sometimes. The Traveler in the Dark patrols the gap in the sundered Earth, occasionally disappearing out into the void for a while before returning. There were apparently plans to try boarding it at one point, but who knows how that’s going.
The last one to appear is also the only one without a name. Referred to as “the stranger with the dragonfire blade”, this dragon takes the form of a person, clad in armor. He apparently travels around challenging people to duels, saying he’ll only accept a name from the one who beats him. Dragon hunters love this dude. They would probably propose marriage if they could.
You said they corresponded to different “elements”?
Oh, right. Here’s the list:
Hopefully you found it enlightening.
Yeah, oil is full of dinosaur ghosts. They’re… trapped in it, or something. We don’t really bother with the specifics. A lot of the old refined by-products like gasoline turned back to crude oil during the Upspring, and it’s alive. Millions of years trapped under the rock gave them a hell of an appetite, too, and it looks like ten out of ten food critics recommend long pig for the discerning dino’s pallette. Luckily they don’t really move around much, so as long as you avoid their hot spots you usually don’t need to deal with them that much. They’re all over the ruins, though, especially the major metropolises like the LA metroplex.
Typically if (when) you do come across these, it’ll be in one of two flavors. The first, most common, and preferable type is the legion construct. Those are scraped together amalgamations of old world tech and scrap metal, stitched together by the living pitch. These are hundreds or thousands of ghosts all glued together, moving in tandem. They’re big, not very fast, but they’ll turn you into paste if you’re too slow to jump out of the way. They’re hard to put down, if you don’t use fire, but while fire makes short work of these it also risks making the problem far worse. General practice among anyone who finds one of these is to either trap it or run from it. Trying to kill it is too big a risk.
The second type of encounter you might have with dinosaur ghosts is what happens when you burn the oil. As it may surprise you, setting fire to the chains trapping the ghosts inside has a bad habit of letting them escape. For a blessing, these ghosts are old enough that most will immediately disperse upon being freed, but it’s never all of them. There’s always a few left behind, and not being tied to an army of their fellows means they’re a lot faster and a lot less clumsy.
You see, the big problem with the dinosaur ghosts and their hunger is that ghosts are spiritual beings. A legion construct might stomp you flat, but that’s a physical attack. It only affects your body. Sure, you’ll die, but your soul is still in one piece, and you have a chance to one day walk the earth again. Freeing them from the pitch removes that mundane element of their risk. Because I kind of buried the lead when I suggested they wanted to eat your meat. A spiritual being is a spiritual threat, and a pack of unbound dinosaur ghosts will tear your soul apart like a pack of hyenas with a baby lamb. If you’re lucky, the body left behind will stumble into another legion construct and turn into its next coat of paint. If you’re not, your old meat suit gets to join the other zombies haunting the ruins, stumbling around and reacting on mindless instinct like a terrestrial jellyfish.
You mentioned kaiju?
Kaiju were mentioned, yes. So were “Atomic Zones”, and vague allusions were made to radiation mixing with magic. You can probably figure out the rest.
It mutated animals into giant monsters?
Okay, maybe you can’t.
The mixture of magic and radiation doesn’t mutate animals, it generates new life, spontaneously. These are kaiju, as in the original meaning of the word. “Strange beast”. Most aren’t much bigger than normal animals (or magical animals), but they have a tendency to grow under duress. Some of them grow a lot under duress. These are the kaiju that get hunted with mechas. It’s kind of a shame, all things considered. They can be pretty cute.
Also worth noting, despite comparing them to animals and calling them beasts, kaiju can fall pretty much anywhere in the kingdom of life. Plant kaiju are fun to deal with. Fungus kaiju aren’t.
You mentioned the moon a couple times. Or was it moons, plural?
It’s plural. There are two moons, one for each sundered half, bound to their respective sides.
Where did the second moon come from?
It didn’t. It’s the same moon, just reflected on the other side of the wall.
So it’s fake?
No, it’s real.
So what’s the deal with it? You said not to look.
Because you shouldn’t look.
Why not?
It’s bad.
I get the sense you don’t want to explain this to me.
Okay, look. The Upspring changed a lot, and not all of it was pleasant. Oil’s full of ghosts, reactors are breeding grounds for monsters, the planet got split in half, but the worst, the worst, thing to come out of magic’s return was what happened to the moon. If it seems like people don’t want to talk about it, it’s because they don’t. No one likes talking about the moon.
Okay, but what happened to it?
It’s alive. They’re alive. The moons aren’t just a big rock anymore, they’re eyes. And they like to watch. We say not to look, but that’s really just a general rule of thumb. There’s no actual harm in it, usually. But if you get in the habit of never looking, then you’ll be less likely to look it in the eye when it’s fully open, when it would actually hurt you. Because if you do look it in the eye, your only rational hope is that you have a friend on hand who can kill you before the worst happens.
...The worst?
The reason you don’t look at the moon. Metaphysical inversion. Your soul becomes physical, changing your body into something monstrous, twisting every aspect of who you were into the worst reflection of itself. We call them “Moonstruck”. Rumor has it there’s a trick to avoiding becoming one, but the only people who would know for sure are the Kizugumi moon hunters in Japan, and they aren’t keen to share. “The best way to avoid becoming moonstruck is to not look at the moon”.
For a small blessing, the moons don’t open fully nearly as often as the old lunar cycles would suggest. Observatory mages keep an eye on them as part of their job, and there’s a daily forecast with current cyclical trends published in the morning paper. So long as you’re keeping yourself in the know, you probably don’t have anything to worry about.
You’ve mentioned ghosts, monsters, and kaiju. I need to know. Are there dragons?
There are eleven dragons.
How specific.
Yeah. They’re big, and powerful, and occasionally sapient. They all look different, and can do things nothing else can. Only one of them actually looks like a traditional idea of a “dragon”, and only superficially. The word is really more of a catchall term we use for them. They don’t really seem to care.
Near as we can tell, each one corresponds with an elemental aspect. They weren’t born as such - they all kind of just appear. The mages in the observatories assume they come out of the Wall, but we’ve never actually seen them do it. They probably don’t age or breed, and we’ve never seen them eat. If they die, they just reappear somewhere else a while later.
Yes, they have names, mostly, and we number them in the order they were discovered - not necessarily the order in which they appeared, since some of them were hard to find, so that would be too difficult to determine for sure. First one to show itself is the one that best resembles a traditional western dragon - we call him Panzer, the “Flying Armory”, but he doesn’t speak. He’s definitely clever, but probably not sapient. He first showed up in the old American empire and spends his time hunting old world weapon stockpiles.
Next was the “Polyhedric Angel”, Maayan. This thing also doesn’t speak. It just kind of… sits in the Red Sea, firing jets of water at anything that gets close. Dragon hunters insist on calling it “she” for some reason, because they’re all insane. I don’t know why they call it an angel.
After Maayan was Bismarck, who’s a big flying whale. She also doesn’t talk. She’s usually pretty calm, just drifting from place to place, but she can summon some absolutely devastating hurricanes if you piss her off. Apparently she has female sex characteristics, which isn’t something anyone needed to know, but now you do. That’s also why we have to preface “don’t breed” with “probably”. Dragon hunters and observatory mages both agree this is probably just a form of mimicry, though, since a lot of dragons make themselves resemble normal animals.
Next we’ve got Omukade, the Crystal Centipede, who spends all his time sleeping around Mount Fuji. No one is really eager to wake him up, though apparently the crystals growing between the gaps of his chitin can be mined for resources. After him was Unukalhai, a big snake. Also called the Star Viper, he keeps a collection of floating islands in western China, and was the first dragon to show itself that actually talks.
Realm and Woe came right after the other, the Oak-Strong Bear and the Breaking Hind. These two follow each other in circles across Europe, and went back to not speaking. The next dragon to appear though, Hell Wasp, not only speaks, she’s downright friendly. Apparently she’s prone to loneliness, and hangs out in California surrounded by women.
Chimera, “the Mutant’s Obelisk”, is… weird. The first dragon since Maayan to appear as something non-biological, it’s a statue sprouting dozens of twisting, misshapen arms. It apparently doesn’t speak, but it does communicate, and not even the dragon hunters like getting close.
Wandering Snail is a spaceship. You can see it - or “her” - passing in front of the Wall sometimes. The Traveler in the Dark patrols the gap in the sundered Earth, occasionally disappearing out into the void for a while before returning. There were apparently plans to try boarding it at one point, but who knows how that’s going.
The last one to appear is also the only one without a name. Referred to as “the stranger with the dragonfire blade”, this dragon takes the form of a person, clad in armor. He apparently travels around challenging people to duels, saying he’ll only accept a name from the one who beats him. Dragon hunters love this dude. They would probably propose marriage if they could.
You said they corresponded to different “elements”?
Oh, right. Here’s the list:
- Panzer, “The Flying Armory” - Fire
Maayan, “The Polyhedric Angel” - Water
Bismarck, “The Sky Whale” - Wind
Omukade, “The Crystal Centipede” - Earth
Unukalhai, “The Star Viper” - Gravity
Realm, “The Oak-Strong Bear” - Wood
Woe, “The Breaking Hind” - Rot
Hell Wasp, “The Queen in Rust” - Metal
Chimera, “The Mutant’s Obelisk” - Radiation
Wandering Snail, “The Traveler in the Dark” - Electricity
The Stranger with the Dragonfire Blade - Magic
Hopefully you found it enlightening.