According to myth Wizards shattered the land with their excesses of magic. The broken remains, the shards, now float upon the fog of eldritch pollution left by their passing, the aether. Suspended by the antimagical field of iron ore cores or forged iron and steel debris, the shards float upon the enchanted fog. Tiny islands adrift on the aethereal torrents, they provide the human survivors their sole refuge from the mist and its arcane horrors. Below them and occasionally against them the sea of clouds swept and roiled. Storms made of swirling aether crackling with bolts of wild magic. Vast tides of mist threatening to swallow them in veils of nightmares. The mist not only sheltered monsters, but its touch warped magic and anything containing it, even living beings, even humans. Touched by the aether's corruption, many survivors gave birth to goblins or transmogrified themselves into chimera, hideous hybrids. Driven by the mists and its twisted creations the remaining humans climbed ever higher into the astral mountains and away from the mists and its denizens.
The astral sky though clear of mists holds is own horrors. Barren of magic it prevents the passage of magic driving it to shelter in flesh or forcing it to ground. The spirits of the lost age, fairies, giants and dragons, long ago fled the void taking refuge in their secret elysia or within the mists and madness of the aether. The astral void drains not only spirits but souls, which are also things of magic. On either end of the Spiral the void bars the soul's passage, trapping it in death and barring it in birth. Souls trapped in bodies rise as the navia, undead monsters. For centuries still births and the undying plagued humanity.
It's been more than a thousand years since the Shattering.
Since then the science of alchemy has replaced the art of wizardy throughout the seventy shards. Its factories spring up stacks in cities. Its potions flood the streets producing droves of enchanted addicts. Now in addition to the monsters and mist, people must face man-made smog and goblin bomb attacks.
Since then the clergy supplanted the witches as conductors of the rites, first and last, delivered with silver cord and silver knife. Literal tenders of souls they wield great influence on their flocks, people who live in horror of undeath, mothers who live in fear of stillbirth.
Since then human survivors abandoned below the ground and beneath the mist gave rise to their own species, the gnomes and dwarves. They, maintain tense trade relationships with the 'sky people' in the aftermath of the Fringe War. A war fought upon and below the aether, it pitted human ironclads against dwarven submersibles to the ruin of the former. Since then rich and widely hated 'gas-baggers' have flooded up into the human kingdoms purchasing real estate, peddling steel and planting industry.
Shattering land is a text based rpg in a persistent open world. It employs a unique trait based system where freely chosen descriptive words and phrases replace numerical stats in character building.
[Charismatic]
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