Eladre. The Sky World. Azure, it was once called. A world of brilliant skies, populated with verdant islands and rich resources. In place of coastlines, there are fragments. In place of oceans, there are clouds and winds and shades of blue. It is a world where civilization is sparse and the gods are but symbols of faith. Travel is rich with discovery, yet teeming with danger — the picture of a chaotic expanse.
Planet Size
Eladre is reminiscent of a mythical ocean; endless without being truly endless. It is, at least, significantly larger than Earth, but the exact specifics are left intentionally ambiguous.
And then, there is the Understorm. An abyss of dense clouds beneath the endless azure. A perpetual storm which no ship, nor man, has survived. It remains one of Eladre’s great mysteries.
The Frontier
Eladre is a world which floats amidst the skies. There are few, if any, mainland continents. Instead, the lands are fractured into islands. Civilization is sparse. Settlements are as walled havens. Beyond such walls and gates, the wilderness is dense with natural features and rich with resources.
And the expanse which separates them is known as The Frontier.
Skyships are the main method of transportation. They can range from humble Skimmer-class vessels to capital Magna-class ships. Skyships can vary in design and construction, but all of them require a special device: Storm Engines. Of course, travel can take days to weeks. And travel is often fraught with dangers. Storms are a common sight, as are pirates and monsters. Jotun are among the most fearsome — airborne giants, living islands, which care not for the ships in their path.
Traces of the Empire
Ordcores one of the Empire’s trump cards. An early MAG-Tech engine which vastly outperformed the sails and propellers of past skyships. In the centuries following the Empire’s end, these devices were reverse engineered and became the Storm Engines — inferior, but easier to produce.
Monsterkind
But, for as many reasons as there are, the wilderness has its dangers. Natural disasters and hostile climates are one story, but no threat is greater or more widely felt than monsters.
Monsters, otherwise known as monsterkind or magifauna, are creatures native to the wilderness. They possess a unique physiology with aetheric blood. This allows them to harness the Flow State on raw instinct alone. Yet, man and beast will never live in harmony. Monsters are highly aggressive towards mortalkind and civilization. They will attack explorers, farmers, and villagers alike. Though exceptions exist, and some monsters can form bonds, they will never allow the domestication of nature.
Order through mortalkind. Chaos through monsterkind.
Studies have shown monsters to exist within three types:
- Elemental. Spirits of nature which appear in abstract forms. Their “heart” is an aetheric crystal.
- Feral. Beasts integrated into animal ecosystems. Far and wide, the most common type.
- Noble. Sapient, intelligent, and part-humanoid. They lack mortal sensibility, but can be reasoned with.
Finally, there are the Furies. A colloquial term for monsters affected by Fury Syndrome. Furies possess heightened abilities and remarkable instincts, with limited sovereignty over surrounding monsters. However, the furies are impossible to reason with. They can be identified by glowing, red veins and red eyes, with an aggression that exceeds even normal monsters.
Furies are ravenous, ferocious, and a menace of the wilderness.
Rifts & Dungeons
Rifts are a natural phenomena, akin to a dormant volcano, in which ambient mana gathers around a large area. Monsters are drawn in by the mana, which acts as a pheromone, and use the rift as a shared nest. Moreover, the congregation of various monstrous species inevitably accelerates the formation of social systems such as hierarchies, roles, and rituals, bonding the rift’s monsters together.
In other words, a rift is a monstrous “settlement.”
Begone, Outsiders
Rifts are known to “twist the path” against explorers. Roads are unreliable. Paths twist and curve. Travel becomes difficult and mapping becomes impossible. Leaving a rift, however? It simply requires the will to do so. Even a journey that has lasted for hours can end within minutes if one wishes to leave.
Rifts often disperse given time. Mana bleeds away, monsters spread out, and the nest falls apart. This is not always the case, however. A few rifts become something more.
Rifthearts are born when a rift awakens. Dormancy turns into activity. Lands shift and change. In doing so, the rift becomes a fortified, sentient ecosystem. Living whirlpools of chaos: Dungeons. Ambient mana coalesces into pockets of aetheric energy. Flora and structural features become living traps. Monsters create large breeding nests, while their attacks on mortalkind become frequent and directed.
Dungeons are also known to contain various treasures. Monsters collect objects of value. Magical items are accrued to “feed” the Riftheart, while valuables are taken for curiosity, greed, and trophies.
Eikons
An archmonster. A quasi-deity creature which defies physical and magical limits. Eikons are born through forbidden rituals, abnormal mana overflow, and the ascension of powerful monsters.
Eikons embody certain concepts such as courage or fertility. These domains reflect an eikon’s behavior, values, and abilities. Because of this, eikons often become rooted within mortal faiths as creatures of fear and reverance. Monsters are even observed to “worship” eikons as well, aggressively protecting idols and offering tribute in the form of food and treasure. An eikon’s presence can be felt across an entire island. A bout of rage may be felt or heard by the locals, and can even cause storms to emerge.
It is natural for an eikon to seek out (or create) a Riftheart and bind their soul to it. They become the Riftheart — a caretaker and broodmother, sculpting the dungeon into their ideal lair. The abundance of mana allows an eikon to feed, grow, and heal at a rapid pace.
A Living Riftheart
Naturally, if the eikon is defeated or killed, the dungeon will also collapse.