A Sky of Strife and Storms

This is the page for the Fabula Ultima campaign A Sky of Strife and Storms. WIP

Links

Planning Thread

Setting

Once, the land was unified, but some ancient cataclysm shattered it. The land is now scattered in smaller fragments, littered with the ruins of the civilizations that predated the disaster, with nothing approaching the size of a continent. Some of these islands lay on the ocean's surface. Others hover kilometers in the atmosphere. Their positions aren't fixed—new islands rise into the sky and older islands descend from the heavens, driven by the formation or destruction of mana crystals. As mana crystals are a powerful energy source for transportation, industry, and warfare, this must be carefully managed to avoid catastrophe. Enterprising or desperate individuals can even take advantage of this by hoisting a sail on a small flying island as a form of transportation.

For other, wealthier individuals, air travel is as simple as boarding an airship. The distribution of technology is almost as fragmented as the land itself, so the form that these take is often idiosyncratic, depending on which culture formed them. Large-scale, fast air travel is mostly the domain of wealthier and more cosmopolitan individuals. This also leads to a bit of an inherent class structure, with the very poorest individuals often living at sea level with little access to travel.

The world has dozens of seasons, and they sweep across in distinct bands, with no fixed schedule. Some are common, and others might be once-in-a-lifetime events. They aren't even strictly weather-based—one might bring an almost destructive abundance of plant growth, while the next is simply mild and sunny. At times, regardless of season, the weather can also manifest as powerful magical storms. These have unpredictable effects. Some can absorb items (or entire islands) from their surroundings, making them apparently vanish into thin air. Others will eject those unlucky passengers, with little relation to their original location—they can be left on the other side of the world, or even in a different time. Perhaps more commonly, these storms can warp the lifeforms that they pass over, transforming humans into new kiths or giving rise to unique and powerful, often giant, beasts.

In places where an island is overshadowed by a relatively stationary, large counterpart, a shadowland can form. These are areas where it's permanently dark, and the stagnant flow of mana can lead to the creation of strange creatures and phenomena.

Magic and Technology

Souls are made of magical energy, and there's no firm dividing line that defines a 'soul'. Many inanimate objects can develop internal energy structures that are hard to distinguish from souls, and in the right circumstances souls can conglomerate or be changed by ambient magical energy. Like other magical energy, souls can be channeled, directed, or stored, including things like trapping them in receptacles to animate undead or constructs. Reincarnation is a known phenomenon, and the souls of the sufficiently enlightened are known to ascend into the heavens after they die, removing them from the cycle. This reinforces beliefs that those who live at higher elevations are more worthy.

There are no entities that are universally recognized as 'gods', but there are plenty of fairly unique and powerful beings, from sapient animals to entities formed of pure magical energy. Some of the most powerful can't directly manifest in the world without causing disasters, but they aren't really a separate category of being. Anybody can become god-like if they accumulate enough power, and presumably the god-like beings can be brought low with the right attack.

As a result of all of this, approaches to magic are varied and often idiosyncratic, ranging from channeling the abilities of powerful entities, to directing the flows of magic through one's body with specialized tattoos. Practitioners are often self-taught, but some of the more centralized or bureaucratic societies have formalized magic schools, or even forced registration of people with magical ability.

Magic and technology are often combined; the best technology incorporates magic, and some schools of magic use technological components to enhance their capabilities. Simple tech and magic are fairly ubiquitous, with more complex and powerful variations of the two being used by the larger empires. Rural areas tend to have the means to live at a comfortable pre-electricity standard of living, and typically use sustainable and low-impact forms of magic and technology. More destructive and resource-hungry forms of these things are usually reserved for those with imperial aspirations, and often rely on secrets from the ruins. The most powerful of these (so far) are the kinds of things that can threaten castles or small settlements, but not entire islands or cities.

Just as these things are pretty regional, methods of travel vary a lot by area, society, and tech level.

Kith

Aracu

A kith of monkey-like plant people, with the ability to photosynthesize in lieu of eating, and an affinity for work that uses their agility. They range in size from something small like a Capuchin to something like a very large chimpanzee. Link

Beast-born

People with features and some of the abilities of (usually domestic) animals, usually born to otherwise baseline human families. Typically caused when an animal is reincarnated as a human. Link

Cadmoi

A long-lived kith born of the remains of dragons, with an affinity for elemental magic and warfare, but many more scholarly members in its diaspora. Tend to have dragon-like features, but they're often fairly subtle. Link

Maera

A reclusive forest-dwelling kith born from plants, with an affinity for fear and the ability to temporarily adopt monstrous forms. Formed as shock troops for an ancient war, and still harboring cultural fears of being enslaved again. Link

Manakin

Stray souls housed in bodies made of a nearby element or human-shaped construct, created spontaneously with no family or memories. Hardy and durable, but often taken advantage of since they start life with little knowledge. Link

Vespergen

Humanoid bat people, of widely varying size, with a tendency toward a nocturnal lifestyle and living in dark areas, and limited flight ability. Their affinity for the darkness often sees them living on the edges of shadowlands, and some Vespergen communities have historically specialized in exploring and exploiting them. Link

Nations

The Aetherian Concord

A competitive and meritocratic society based on the pursuit of magical power and knowledge, with day-to-day concerns handled by constructs, and a literal underbelly full of desperate exiles. Link

The Llewedhynn Comities

A loose federation of small communities that depend on sustainable technology and magic, mostly collectivist and egalitarian, with religious beliefs focusing on personal enlightenment and cultivation. Link

The Marakavan Alliance

A loose alliance of city-states with the means to forge the souls of the dead, and a commensurate skill at blacksmithing and rocky relations with their neighbors. Link

Matrado, Nyara, and Trinyo

Matrado and Nyara are a pair of surface-level islands, isolationist and relatively low-tech, but with diverse magical traditions. Trinyo, the sky island, is forbidden to outsiders (by force at times) but seems to be a lush hermetic retreat. Link

The Prezyan Imperium

One of the most powerful nations, fueled by capitalism and colonialism, with a robust transportation system and (air) naval might thanks to their industrialization and access to ancient knowledge. Link

The allied nations of the Ronanrian region

A large collective of semi-autonomous smaller nations and city-states, with a robust transportation network and trade, and fairly varied although culturally related to one another. Link

The city-state of Spathos

A militaristic feudal society, relatively conservative and isolationist, ruled by Cadmoi and armed with weapons made from the strange animal corpses strewn throughout the land. Link

The Under City and environs

A vibrant, multi-cultural society in the ruins along the undersides of a sky island, ruled by an alliance of pirates and known for violence. Link

Maps

Political map

Terrain/elevation map

Historical Events

• Millennia ago - the war machine: Before the cataclysm, a powerful, massive instrument of war sank into the ground... defeated, but not fully disabled. Much more recently, it was rediscovered in what is now the Llewedhynn Comities. It's now inhabited, treated as some combination of a city, a trade center, and a fortress.
• Millennia ago - the cataclysm: Long ago, all of the land was at sea level, and powerful societies lived upon it. Whatever catastrophe they unleashed, it split the land and left a world of floating islands covered in ruins.
• ~100 years ago - the Origins of the Cult of the Drowned One: After amassing a wealth of power and arcane knowledge, the pirate Zeviek was sentenced to drown for his crimes. His power was too great, though, and he still lives at the bottom of the sea, effectively a god and feared by every sailor and seaside community.
• 75 years ago - the dissolution of the Monster Hunting Guild: For centuries, an worldwide monster-hunting organization protected settlements from the monstrosities left by magical storms. 75 years ago, it was dissolved, and soon after replaced by a bureaucratic and inefficient puppet organization.
• ~60 years ago - the Haunting of Duchess Sharpe: The Sharpes founded a trading empire that made them one of the most powerful forces in the Prezyan Imperium, until the grisly assassination of the husband. In the aftermath, the Duchess fell into fear and paranoia, turning their estate into a three-dimensional labyrinth that almost seems alive.
• 30 years ago - the fall of Lyonet: Lyonet was a colony of the Prezyan Imperium, which slowly but steadily fell from the sky. Its millions of citizens were evacuated, and now form an often-desperate underclass in many surrounding nations.
• 30 years ago - the Battle of the Numei Dam: The three nations of Numei Island dammed the river that fell from it, altering the ocean ecosystem below and disrupting trade routes through the entire area. The Prezyan Imperium launched an attack on them to retaliate for this, but was driven back, setting an example for other small nations.

Mysteries

• Pre-cataclysm ghost airship(s): Over the past few years, there have been numerous sightings of mysterious airships of apparently ancient design. These appear and disappear suddenly, and since having such technology would be a huge advantage, many militaries and organizations would be interested in capturing one.
• The Fiery Widower and The Jealous Dungeonkeep: The Jealous Dungeonkeep lives away from the sun, underground or in ruins, with no sight but a preternatural sense of smell, and is rumored to be raising a subterranean army. The Fiery Widower is a mysterious man(?) who commits grand acts of arson on remote islands, always sparing one victim to spread the tale, seemingly searching for something or somebody... which may be the Dungeonkeep.
• The Missing Crown Jewels of the Preyzan Imperium: The Crown Jewels of the Prezyan Imperium are said to house powerful, unknown magics, but at some point they were stolen and replaced with replicas, by a party whose identity and goals are unknown.
• The Phantom Port: A strange port sighted in multiple places at times, rumored to be Orkporte, whose location was known only to the late Captain Kindle and its mysterious inhabitants.
• The Rukh City: A nation-sized bird, carrying a settlement on its back, always spotted high in the sky, but leaving strange visitors in its wake.