A Planeswalker's Guide to Adrisar
History
Long ago, the Old World raised up nations that wielded mighty magic and artifice. The world was graced by broad and fair continents separated by deep and calm seas, and a web of solid cloud that stretched across the sky. The sky, the seas, the land were all tamed and controlled, the kingdoms that ruled it masters of all that they touched. Those kingdoms wielded power seldom known in the multiverse.
But it was not to last. In the height of their power, the empires of the Old World began to clash, and eventually open war was fought between them. So refined was their magic and their artifice, that the terrible weapons employed utterly destroyed all the civilizations that utilized them in a mere thirteen days. The Thirteen Days War sank continents and shattered the skies. Millions, perhaps even billions perished.
Those that survived the brief but terrible fury of the war and the echoes of destruction that followed in its aftermath had lost the magical and technological prowess of their forebearers, and inherited a world that was itself brutally scarred and driven mad. Whether they clung to the rubble of the sky web, remained on the plateaus that were once the surface of the land, descended into the furrows that were carved, or even laired deep within the earth, they had to rebuild from nothing.
Millennia have passed since then, and now the new civilizations of Adrisar are again on the rise. While they have not reached the glorious and terrible heights of the Old World, tensions are rising between them, and the new nations reach for the weapons that brought about the destruction of their ancestors.
Altrium, the Aerial Kingdom
The "Lands" of Altrium
Before the Thirteen Days War, a great spider’s web of magical stone encircled the entire world. High above the normal clouds was this aerial world, and atop the great strands miles wide and as long as forever, there lived one of the great civilizations of that age. No one knows whether the Sky Web was a natural feature of the plane that the ancient humans simply discovered, or if the greatest mages of the pre-war period created it as their Magnum Opus.
Whatever the case, the web was destroyed by the violence of the great war. Titanic forces sundered the cloud-lands apart, and their strands of immeasurable size crashed to earth and sea, no doubt killing millions on their top sides alone.
Yet, the network was not entirely destroyed: Scattered portions remained more or less impervious to gravity, and on the backs of those islands of safety, though life was by no means certain with the high spires of crystal glass and adamant steel crashing down to their foundations with the violence of the fall, death was by no means certain, either.
What remained of the Great Sky Web was a collection of ‘solid clouds’, so called because from the surface the matted layers of mist that clung to the magical stone would always give them the appearance of the natural clouds they largely soared above. These now drifted freely on the wind, and the survivors had perhaps the hardest time of all to reclaim some semblance of society. Their ascent from barbarism was the longest coming of all the civilizations of the new world, and no doubt the most unlikely.
Yet at last the lands above the surface were united, and remain united as Altrium, the Aerial Kingdom. Life for its citizens is fair in ways unknown to grounded sorts: due to their altitude, they are familiar with neither rain nor snow, nor gloom that common clouds provide to others: their water comes from the strange attraction the stone they make their homes upon seems to hold for its vaporous forms, which condensed still provides sufficient drink for men and moisture for crops as it must have in the old days of the Sky Web. Theirs are long days above a swift sunrise and lingering evening, almost without exception fair and mild, warm though the nights be bitterly cold.
On the greatest of the solid clouds, mighty cities have been raised, while on the lesser sorts that drift lower in the sky one can find townships and farmsteads of the common folk that owe allegiance to the throne of Altrium. Yet even this is not quite enough for them. In the early days after the war, some people in the sky who were able to more swiftly create methods of aerial transportation developed a taste for independence, and maintained their clans aloft between the clouds to which their peers were bound. These travelers could, if they so chose, go their entire lives without setting foot on anything more solid than the deck of a zeppelin, and here and there lazy fleets of their like form another sort of cloud.
Thus, it may be said that the Lands of Altrium are all that is above the land: The clouds (stone or otherwise), the open sky, even the wind and sun that are their Goddesses belong to them.
As time passes, and trade brings the peoples of the shattered world to know of one another, this makes many on the ground wary to look up.
The Devices of Altrium
The Aerial Kingdom is, oddly enough, populated almost exclusively by people who cannot fly. This need alone would have driven the advancement of artifice in Altrium, but all other mundane needs, as well as perhaps a greater than average share of intellectual curiosity, still apply in Altrium as well. As such, artificers are common and well-respected and their creations are part of daily life
Sunstones
Sunstones are superficially similar to Thran powerstones, in that they are crystals of varying sizes that provide energy to artifacts of all descriptions. Sunstones, however, do not have the kick of proper powerstones, nor can they be installed safely in the bowels of a skyship, for Sunstones gain their power from sunlight. Fully charged, a Sunstone will last through the night if the strain on it isn’t too great, but the tiny ones used for Gliders are too small for them to run more than an hour or so after nightfall.
Before the Thirteen Days War, the people made vastly superior sunstones (or perhaps proper powerstones), relics that never give out no matter how long they’re kept in the dark. Since the secret of their creation has been lost, surviving Ancient Sunstones are some of the most valuable items in modern Altrium
The Angel of Glass: The Angel of Glass is a project undertaken in joint secrecy by the Church of Serra, the Royal Academy, and the Fleet, top minds in all three organizations adding in to its production. When complete, the Angel will be a stunning piece of work. Made entirely from carefully carved and fitted modern Sunstones, with a matrix of ancient sunstones at her heart, the Angel is to be part monument, part weapon. Beautiful and mighty in equal measure, its designers believe that unveiling their completed creation will be the final sign that Altrium has returned to a glorious state not seen since before the Thirteen Days War.
Means of Transit
Of course, the most common forms are artifice are those that allow humans to traverse the sky. Though some of the very wealthy favor riding pegasi or the even rarer griffins, most natives of Altrium will take a reliable machine over a temperamental and expensive to keep beast any day.
Gliders: Gliders are the smallest and most simple flying machines found in Altrium, sufficient for carrying a single person and as much cargo as that person could hold. There are two basic styles of glider, both of which may be described as a single large, fixed wing with a place where a human can ride along with a means of steering near the center. Both are also powered. Though gaining altitude is difficult, especially with a heavier load, the artifact engine that manipulates air currents around the device can manage, and certainly does not risk being incapable of returning to its starting altitude.
The older style of glider is ridden from beneath, like a traditional hang-glider, though whether the pilot is strapped to the glider’s underbelly or the glider strapped to the pilot’s back is hard to say. The simplest models are steered with the whole body, turning and looking where you want to fly, while some more advanced models include a bar in front of the pilot’s head that can be grasped and turned to control the device.
The newer style is ridden standing or kneeling on top of the device, and is controlled with reins (though a clever pilot can direct by simply shifting his or her weight). Launching is somewhat harder than with an old glider, and there are minor concerns about the safety of such a craft, but the new glides provide a vastly better field of vision upward and outward, as well as a slightly better capacity for carrying items, so the Fleet has at least switched over for its scouts. Most commoners have older gliders still, partly owing to the fact that they are durable, and thus tend to be family heirlooms.
Ornithopters: Proper one or two seat Ornithopters are the next largest flyers in the sky. Offering cargo, handling, and comfort over gliders, the only reason more common families don’t own one is the expense. The Fleet, however, commissions many Ornithopters, and countless improvements thereupon. Thus, “State Thopters” are a common sight throughout Altrium.
Zeppelins: Large lighter-than-air ships are perhaps the second most common flyers in the sky, after the gliders that any common family can be expected to own. They’re slow, but they’re reliable and not too expensive while capable of carrying large amounts of people and cargo indefinitely, making them the far and away favorite of merchants and traveler clans alike. The travelers, especially, have an affinity for airships, and not only seem to consistently improve on Royal Academy designs, but also have been known to lash multiple zeppelins together with rope bridges to form impromptu traveler towns.
Skyships: The mighty skyships are by far the best, most advanced, and most glorious way of getting across the sky. However, the amount of wood and metal (both at premiums above the surface of the world) needed to create a skyship are vast, and the sunstone array to keep one running through the night must be huge if no ancient sunstones are available to be placed in the engine itself. As such, only the Fleet and a few of the wealthiest families (noble or mercantile) in Altrium possess Skyships.
The Royal Family’s Skyship, the Leyana’s Pride is a unique example. Though based on a military model (it possesses a weapon deck and could be expected to hold its own if attacked), the ship is far larger, over three hundred feet long, and of course far more ornate, featuring luxurious cabins for the Kestrel family with their spouses, and the ship’s captain. One would be forgiven for thinking that the Leyana’s Pride was a showpiece, but it isn’t just the largest ship in the sky, it’s the fastest and one of the most durable and nimble as well. Built just five years ago, it incorporates an Ancient Sunstone core, naturally, and several careful adjustments to the engine and profile that allow it unparalleled speed and superb maneuverability for its size.
Other Artifice
Artifacts are common in Altrium, but living ones, automatons, are not. A few gnomes (a seemingly universal design) can be found serving the Royal Academy, but beyond that machines are tools for the people of Altrium, not people themselves. Furthermore, a great proliferation of complex artifacts is difficult, as Altrium lacks the resources to mass produce, having to trade or recycle for every scrap of wood and metal they possess.
The People of Altrium
The Commons
Altrium is a blessed Kingdom: its people are generally happy, and possess a very high standard of living compared to most places in the multiverse. Whether living in the smaller farming towns or the great cities, the commoners are comfortable, and find that even if they are not wealthy merchants and traders, they would not trade their lot for any but the greatest of the ground-folk, for their needs are easily met and the luxuries that they produce not entirely beyond their reach to acquire. Upward mobility from the ranks of the workers to the ranks of the merchants is certainly possible, though proper nobility are cut from a different cloth, and the change of a family's rank between common and noble is very rare, having occurred only in cases where a commoner has done a fantastically great service to the Crown, usually by heroics in times warfare.
Explorers and Travellers
Itinerant sky-folk, explorers make up a small part of the population in numbers, but a very significant one in culture. Between the solid clouds, drifting on the winds, there is an ever-changing expanse of their world. Sometimes, a drifting island unpeopled in the modern day may be revealed, or a glimpse of the world below the clouds prove profitable or interesting. Even simply riding the winds, far from hospitable landing, can be a life. Explorer clans keep together much as common gypsies do, plying minor trades and bringing unique goods to places not serviced well by more common merchants. Staying aloft, staying alive, is more of a struggle for them than it is for the commons of the sky, but most of them would not trade their freedom to drift upon the wind for any measure of security. Still, they owe their allegiance to Altrium, and are considered part of the aerial kingdom by both the kingdom and themselves.
The Nobles
Altrium is ruled by a King, who is also the sitting lord of its capitol. Other landed noble families by tradition rule over one city and its surrounding environs, a self-sufficient state amidst the clouds. There are perhaps two dozen such families that have reigned for generations, and another dozen that are not hereditary, but are Lord Mayors of the smaller communities that have managed some degree of self-rule independent of the city lords. Beyond that, there are many houses of unlanded nobles who find employment as judges, advocates, administrators, and functionaries, swelling the ranks of the nobility with such folk. While the nobility meets in council to make their laws, the monarch does have the ultimate say, and can enact his rules over them or veto what they decide. However, memory of the few times in history a poor monarch's exercise of power has resulted in civil war tends to curb unilateral action.
The Fleet
Altrium has had, in its history, little cause for war, for who can assail those positioned above the world? Still, memory of the terrible Thirteen Days War is not something that will soon dissipate, nor has the World Above been one entirely of peace, in some past centuries engaging in skirmishes against the forces of the ground, or making civil war against themselves for control of the Throne. Though these incidents have been few and far between, Altrium still maintains a great though largely ceremonial fleet and air-navy, far in excess of what may be needed to enforce the law or ward against unruly flying creatures. While most of Altrium's soldiers have never seen combat, nor are they likely to, their machines have been designed by the Royal Academy as the model of efficiency and firepower, enough that a more seasoned but more poorly equipped force would be given pause, and quite possibly routed if it came to open battle.
The Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Science and Magecraft is the most influential body in Altrium other than the royal family, House Kestrel. The Academy is itself led by a board of some dozen men and women, experts and masters in their fields, as well as the members of their families and another score or so that are both unlanded nobility and have made some contribution to scientific or magical knowledge. The academy directs their research diligently, seeking ways to improve on what they have and recapture what was lost in the Thirteen Days War. No doubt the sky-folk would have long ago fallen to barbarism or misrule but for the influence of the Academy in maintaining and progressing a standard of education and technology amongst them.
The Church
The two primary deities of Altrium are the Sun Goddess they name Serra, and the Goddess of the Winds they name Leyana. Faith is not an exceptional part of life in Altrium, but the common people do make their devotions, and might be expected to pray to Serra at dawn or dusk and to Leyana before setting out on a flight.
The astute planeswalker notes that the name of Serra is not unique to the people of Altrium -- in fact, it is a name that is revered throughout the planes, especially on Dominaria. No connection to the Dominarian goddess nor to the Planeswalker that bore her name has ever been proved on Altrium, especially considering that unlike most followers of Serra they hold another deity as her equal. However, assumptions are somewhat unavoidable to those studied in the lore and history of other planes.
The Churches of Serra and Leyana are separate from one another, and both influential in the politics and life of Altrium, though somewhat less so than the Royal Academy
House Kestrel, the Royal Family of Altrium
Ronar Solmn Kestrel: Ronar Solmn is the patriarch of the Kestrel line, and current king of Altrium. He is an old man now, having reached the age of eighty-five, but the years that have carved furrows in his brow and countenance have not yet begun to weigh him down, and thus while reclining he may be the picture of the elderly invalid, when he speaks none doubt that he has years of rule yet ahead of him. His reign, now in its fiftieth year, has been a picture of justice and prosperity.
Korvus Madar Kestrel: Known as "the Indolent", 48-year-old Korvus Madar is the eldest living child of Ronar Solmn, and is every inch the spoiled nobleman, thrust into position to inherit owing to his elder sister's death in a thopter crash at the age of nineteen. His Wife, Chara Vyn Dawnstar-Kestrel was once a motivated woman beloved by the masses, but after the birth of her third child began receiving visions that drove her insane, and the positive influence she once had on Korvus vanished as her chambers were converted into her prison and asylum.
Terinus Tor Kestrel: The younger of Ronar Solmn's two children, 40-year-old Terinus Tor is a schemer at heart. One of the most feared, if not respected judges in the courts of Altrium, he is a master of the loophole, opening or closing such an escape as he wills with careful interpretation of the law. His wife, Larasha Nueh Albatross-Kestrel, pushes him towards greater ambitions, ever asking the question why his brother's line should rule in place of his own...
Solmn Reyal Kestrel: Solmn Reyal is the eldest child and only son of Korvus Madar. Known as "The White Prince", the 24-year-old is beloved by the people and it is widely suspected that inheritance may pass over his father in favor of a longer reign from Solmn Reyal. An incredibly driven and talented statesman though he is, Solmn has not yet found a wife, which makes him the object of attention from most every young lady of Altrium's high court.
Aluma Tarina Kestrel: Eldest daughter and second child of Korvus Madar, 21-year-old Aluma Tarina is a scientist and an explorer first, a princess a distant second. She is often away from the court on some expedition or another, traveling either with a fleet from the Royal Academy, or in some few cases that have caused no end of terror in older and wiser heads, on her own, as she is an excellent thopter pilot. If pressed, though, she is highly skilled with both bow and sword: better, she says, than finding herself both stranded and defenseless some day. She is engaged to Orin Prestor Sparrow, son of a respected house placed in the Royal Academy.
Nadia Sela Kestrel: Youngest child of Korvus Madar, the 17-year-old Nadia Sela is, deep down, a zealot. She feels herself and her aims in all things to be divinely inspired, which combined with the entitlement that comes from being royal makes her quite possibly the most stubborn living person in Altrium; once she has set her mind on something, there is no force in the world that can change her opinion. Though the two of them keep it a secret, she loves her first cousin Logan Avinar in a way unbefitting their close relation.
Logan Avinar Kestrel: The 20-year-old Logan Avinar is the only child of Terinus Tor. To most, he seems a simple young man, his interests strong in sport and the artful theory of warfare, with little beyond that to mark him as an exceptional personage. However, Logan Avinar is actually quite intelligent, possibly the smartest of the living Kestrels except Aluma Tarina: he simply enjoys what he enjoys, and finds it useful for others to underestimate him. His relationship with Nadia Sela, while not strictly forbidden by the laws of Altrium, would certainly not pass the muster of their fathers or shared grandfather, and somehow he managed to convince her to keep the matter clandestine until such a time as he could devise a way to avoid such scrutiny.
Other Notable people of Altrium
Sodar Lenmis Griffin: Sodar Lenmis is an old soldier, living in a time when there has been no great war to challenge Altrium's forces. Admiral of the Fleet, he is fiercely loyal to Ronar Solmn and the Kestrel line in general, having worked closely with all three living generations and earned the respect of all of them. He was Aluma Tarina Kestrel's teacher in swordsmanship and archery, and Logan Avinar Kestrel's in tactics.
Laran Lars Sparrow: Laran Lars is the current Head of the Royal Academy, serving his third four-year term in that post. The Royal Academy's leadership defers to him despite his relative youth, being only fifty years of age, owing his breadth and depth of knowledge, his zeal, and his ties to the royal family. His specialty is in engineering, and the royal family's fabulous skyship owes many of its advanced features to his design.
Orin Prestor Sparrow: Orin Prestor is the third child and only son of Laran Lars. Seemingly destined to follow in his father's footsteps, at least as far as becoming a man of science goes, Orin is the most driven and active young figure in the Royal Academy, looking both to uncovering the secrets of the past and producing new knowledge for the future. He is engaged to Aluma Tarina Kestrel, who is one year his senior. The match is a good one, chosen by the pair themselves and swiftly given the blessing of Ronar Solmn; the passion of each for the furtherance of knowledge is only matched in this generation by the other.
Garan Halidar Zephyr: Garan Halidar is the High Priest of Serra and the Grand Architect of Altrium, which places him on the board of the Royal Academy as well. Though the Academy accords him only grudging respect, Garan Halidar is the only man in the kingdom to wield both temporal and religious power in significant measure, making him a dangerous man to have as an enemy. The Angel of Glass is his brain-child.
Anatomy of a Solid Cloud
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1: Cloudstone. Cloudstone is the anomalous material at the heart of all the solid clouds. Supposedly, before the Thirteen Days, the Cloud Belt was an immense spider's web of cloudstone stretching across the world, and the clouds we see today are the shattered remnants of that once great structure. Cloudstone, when observed directly is usually a light grey and comes normally by a smooth, glassy texture. It is very hard (rating somewhere in the region of 8 on Moh's scale). It is the cloudstone that seems somehow impervious to gravity, a feature that to a degree seems dependant on the size of the chunk. A quarried block or chunk (which, due to its extreme hardness and the skyfolk's dislike of damaging their homes, is quite a rarity) is simply unfathomably light for stone of its size, and the largest remaining islands float the highest. However, after a certain point (Say, about a cubic acre of the stone), there seems to be a diminishing return: townships float scarcely higher than those isles too small to be regularly inhabited but too large to fall, and the greatest cities not more than a few hundred feet, on average, higher than the townships.
Overloading an island has never been observed: it seems by the time cloudstone is capable of lifting its own weight, it can support about as much matter as you could conceivably load on its top. Most ground-bound (and extraplanar) sages feel that it, and all of the ecosystem it supports, cannot have been natural, and is instead a product of the Old World. Natives, naturally, tend to disagree.
2: Topsoil. While one would suspect the soils of the sky to either be worn-down cloudstone or else imported from the surface, the topsoil of the clouds is another anomaly. A darker grey than cloudstone, it supports plants from the surface passibly, but in it the unique crops of the sky flourish in its strange embrace, and are thus preferred. Some experiments have been attempted: over many years of tilling and growing, sky plants grown in mixed soil appear to convert it, while ground plants grown in the same soil leave its composition unchanged, adding only what is plowed under to the bulk. When taken away from the clouds, the soil can still support its native plants, but will not spread when mixed on the ground. this is thought to be due in part to the lack of Haze.
3: The Haze. What makes the floating rocks that are the solid clouds look like natural clouds, the Haze is a mist of water vapor that clings to cloudstone, forming around it quickly if dispersed somehow. The haze is thin atop the clouds, ranging from an inch or two thick to knee deep depending on the day, though pea-soup thick always. on the sides and bottoms, it clings in thick, matted sheets, clouds sticking to the clouds.
Before the Thirteen Days War, a great spider’s web of magical stone encircled the entire world. High above the normal clouds was this aerial world, and atop the great strands miles wide and as long as forever, there lived one of the great civilizations of that age. No one knows whether the Sky Web was a natural feature of the plane that the ancient humans simply discovered, or if the greatest mages of the pre-war period created it as their Magnum Opus.
Whatever the case, the web was destroyed by the violence of the great war. Titanic forces sundered the cloud-lands apart, and their strands of immeasurable size crashed to earth and sea, no doubt killing millions on their top sides alone.
Yet, the network was not entirely destroyed: Scattered portions remained more or less impervious to gravity, and on the backs of those islands of safety, though life was by no means certain with the high spires of crystal glass and adamant steel crashing down to their foundations with the violence of the fall, death was by no means certain, either.
What remained of the Great Sky Web was a collection of ‘solid clouds’, so called because from the surface the matted layers of mist that clung to the magical stone would always give them the appearance of the natural clouds they largely soared above. These now drifted freely on the wind, and the survivors had perhaps the hardest time of all to reclaim some semblance of society. Their ascent from barbarism was the longest coming of all the civilizations of the new world, and no doubt the most unlikely.
Yet at last the lands above the surface were united, and remain united as Altrium, the Aerial Kingdom. Life for its citizens is fair in ways unknown to grounded sorts: due to their altitude, they are familiar with neither rain nor snow, nor gloom that common clouds provide to others: their water comes from the strange attraction the stone they make their homes upon seems to hold for its vaporous forms, which condensed still provides sufficient drink for men and moisture for crops as it must have in the old days of the Sky Web. Theirs are long days above a swift sunrise and lingering evening, almost without exception fair and mild, warm though the nights be bitterly cold.
On the greatest of the solid clouds, mighty cities have been raised, while on the lesser sorts that drift lower in the sky one can find townships and farmsteads of the common folk that owe allegiance to the throne of Altrium. Yet even this is not quite enough for them. In the early days after the war, some people in the sky who were able to more swiftly create methods of aerial transportation developed a taste for independence, and maintained their clans aloft between the clouds to which their peers were bound. These travelers could, if they so chose, go their entire lives without setting foot on anything more solid than the deck of a zeppelin, and here and there lazy fleets of their like form another sort of cloud.
Thus, it may be said that the Lands of Altrium are all that is above the land: The clouds (stone or otherwise), the open sky, even the wind and sun that are their Goddesses belong to them.
As time passes, and trade brings the peoples of the shattered world to know of one another, this makes many on the ground wary to look up.
The Devices of Altrium
The Aerial Kingdom is, oddly enough, populated almost exclusively by people who cannot fly. This need alone would have driven the advancement of artifice in Altrium, but all other mundane needs, as well as perhaps a greater than average share of intellectual curiosity, still apply in Altrium as well. As such, artificers are common and well-respected and their creations are part of daily life
Sunstones
Sunstones are superficially similar to Thran powerstones, in that they are crystals of varying sizes that provide energy to artifacts of all descriptions. Sunstones, however, do not have the kick of proper powerstones, nor can they be installed safely in the bowels of a skyship, for Sunstones gain their power from sunlight. Fully charged, a Sunstone will last through the night if the strain on it isn’t too great, but the tiny ones used for Gliders are too small for them to run more than an hour or so after nightfall.
Before the Thirteen Days War, the people made vastly superior sunstones (or perhaps proper powerstones), relics that never give out no matter how long they’re kept in the dark. Since the secret of their creation has been lost, surviving Ancient Sunstones are some of the most valuable items in modern Altrium
The Angel of Glass: The Angel of Glass is a project undertaken in joint secrecy by the Church of Serra, the Royal Academy, and the Fleet, top minds in all three organizations adding in to its production. When complete, the Angel will be a stunning piece of work. Made entirely from carefully carved and fitted modern Sunstones, with a matrix of ancient sunstones at her heart, the Angel is to be part monument, part weapon. Beautiful and mighty in equal measure, its designers believe that unveiling their completed creation will be the final sign that Altrium has returned to a glorious state not seen since before the Thirteen Days War.
Means of Transit
Of course, the most common forms are artifice are those that allow humans to traverse the sky. Though some of the very wealthy favor riding pegasi or the even rarer griffins, most natives of Altrium will take a reliable machine over a temperamental and expensive to keep beast any day.
Gliders: Gliders are the smallest and most simple flying machines found in Altrium, sufficient for carrying a single person and as much cargo as that person could hold. There are two basic styles of glider, both of which may be described as a single large, fixed wing with a place where a human can ride along with a means of steering near the center. Both are also powered. Though gaining altitude is difficult, especially with a heavier load, the artifact engine that manipulates air currents around the device can manage, and certainly does not risk being incapable of returning to its starting altitude.
The older style of glider is ridden from beneath, like a traditional hang-glider, though whether the pilot is strapped to the glider’s underbelly or the glider strapped to the pilot’s back is hard to say. The simplest models are steered with the whole body, turning and looking where you want to fly, while some more advanced models include a bar in front of the pilot’s head that can be grasped and turned to control the device.
The newer style is ridden standing or kneeling on top of the device, and is controlled with reins (though a clever pilot can direct by simply shifting his or her weight). Launching is somewhat harder than with an old glider, and there are minor concerns about the safety of such a craft, but the new glides provide a vastly better field of vision upward and outward, as well as a slightly better capacity for carrying items, so the Fleet has at least switched over for its scouts. Most commoners have older gliders still, partly owing to the fact that they are durable, and thus tend to be family heirlooms.
Ornithopters: Proper one or two seat Ornithopters are the next largest flyers in the sky. Offering cargo, handling, and comfort over gliders, the only reason more common families don’t own one is the expense. The Fleet, however, commissions many Ornithopters, and countless improvements thereupon. Thus, “State Thopters” are a common sight throughout Altrium.
Zeppelins: Large lighter-than-air ships are perhaps the second most common flyers in the sky, after the gliders that any common family can be expected to own. They’re slow, but they’re reliable and not too expensive while capable of carrying large amounts of people and cargo indefinitely, making them the far and away favorite of merchants and traveler clans alike. The travelers, especially, have an affinity for airships, and not only seem to consistently improve on Royal Academy designs, but also have been known to lash multiple zeppelins together with rope bridges to form impromptu traveler towns.
Skyships: The mighty skyships are by far the best, most advanced, and most glorious way of getting across the sky. However, the amount of wood and metal (both at premiums above the surface of the world) needed to create a skyship are vast, and the sunstone array to keep one running through the night must be huge if no ancient sunstones are available to be placed in the engine itself. As such, only the Fleet and a few of the wealthiest families (noble or mercantile) in Altrium possess Skyships.
The Royal Family’s Skyship, the Leyana’s Pride is a unique example. Though based on a military model (it possesses a weapon deck and could be expected to hold its own if attacked), the ship is far larger, over three hundred feet long, and of course far more ornate, featuring luxurious cabins for the Kestrel family with their spouses, and the ship’s captain. One would be forgiven for thinking that the Leyana’s Pride was a showpiece, but it isn’t just the largest ship in the sky, it’s the fastest and one of the most durable and nimble as well. Built just five years ago, it incorporates an Ancient Sunstone core, naturally, and several careful adjustments to the engine and profile that allow it unparalleled speed and superb maneuverability for its size.
Other Artifice
Artifacts are common in Altrium, but living ones, automatons, are not. A few gnomes (a seemingly universal design) can be found serving the Royal Academy, but beyond that machines are tools for the people of Altrium, not people themselves. Furthermore, a great proliferation of complex artifacts is difficult, as Altrium lacks the resources to mass produce, having to trade or recycle for every scrap of wood and metal they possess.
The People of Altrium
The Commons
Altrium is a blessed Kingdom: its people are generally happy, and possess a very high standard of living compared to most places in the multiverse. Whether living in the smaller farming towns or the great cities, the commoners are comfortable, and find that even if they are not wealthy merchants and traders, they would not trade their lot for any but the greatest of the ground-folk, for their needs are easily met and the luxuries that they produce not entirely beyond their reach to acquire. Upward mobility from the ranks of the workers to the ranks of the merchants is certainly possible, though proper nobility are cut from a different cloth, and the change of a family's rank between common and noble is very rare, having occurred only in cases where a commoner has done a fantastically great service to the Crown, usually by heroics in times warfare.
Explorers and Travellers
Itinerant sky-folk, explorers make up a small part of the population in numbers, but a very significant one in culture. Between the solid clouds, drifting on the winds, there is an ever-changing expanse of their world. Sometimes, a drifting island unpeopled in the modern day may be revealed, or a glimpse of the world below the clouds prove profitable or interesting. Even simply riding the winds, far from hospitable landing, can be a life. Explorer clans keep together much as common gypsies do, plying minor trades and bringing unique goods to places not serviced well by more common merchants. Staying aloft, staying alive, is more of a struggle for them than it is for the commons of the sky, but most of them would not trade their freedom to drift upon the wind for any measure of security. Still, they owe their allegiance to Altrium, and are considered part of the aerial kingdom by both the kingdom and themselves.
The Nobles
Altrium is ruled by a King, who is also the sitting lord of its capitol. Other landed noble families by tradition rule over one city and its surrounding environs, a self-sufficient state amidst the clouds. There are perhaps two dozen such families that have reigned for generations, and another dozen that are not hereditary, but are Lord Mayors of the smaller communities that have managed some degree of self-rule independent of the city lords. Beyond that, there are many houses of unlanded nobles who find employment as judges, advocates, administrators, and functionaries, swelling the ranks of the nobility with such folk. While the nobility meets in council to make their laws, the monarch does have the ultimate say, and can enact his rules over them or veto what they decide. However, memory of the few times in history a poor monarch's exercise of power has resulted in civil war tends to curb unilateral action.
The Fleet
Altrium has had, in its history, little cause for war, for who can assail those positioned above the world? Still, memory of the terrible Thirteen Days War is not something that will soon dissipate, nor has the World Above been one entirely of peace, in some past centuries engaging in skirmishes against the forces of the ground, or making civil war against themselves for control of the Throne. Though these incidents have been few and far between, Altrium still maintains a great though largely ceremonial fleet and air-navy, far in excess of what may be needed to enforce the law or ward against unruly flying creatures. While most of Altrium's soldiers have never seen combat, nor are they likely to, their machines have been designed by the Royal Academy as the model of efficiency and firepower, enough that a more seasoned but more poorly equipped force would be given pause, and quite possibly routed if it came to open battle.
The Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Science and Magecraft is the most influential body in Altrium other than the royal family, House Kestrel. The Academy is itself led by a board of some dozen men and women, experts and masters in their fields, as well as the members of their families and another score or so that are both unlanded nobility and have made some contribution to scientific or magical knowledge. The academy directs their research diligently, seeking ways to improve on what they have and recapture what was lost in the Thirteen Days War. No doubt the sky-folk would have long ago fallen to barbarism or misrule but for the influence of the Academy in maintaining and progressing a standard of education and technology amongst them.
The Church
The two primary deities of Altrium are the Sun Goddess they name Serra, and the Goddess of the Winds they name Leyana. Faith is not an exceptional part of life in Altrium, but the common people do make their devotions, and might be expected to pray to Serra at dawn or dusk and to Leyana before setting out on a flight.
The astute planeswalker notes that the name of Serra is not unique to the people of Altrium -- in fact, it is a name that is revered throughout the planes, especially on Dominaria. No connection to the Dominarian goddess nor to the Planeswalker that bore her name has ever been proved on Altrium, especially considering that unlike most followers of Serra they hold another deity as her equal. However, assumptions are somewhat unavoidable to those studied in the lore and history of other planes.
The Churches of Serra and Leyana are separate from one another, and both influential in the politics and life of Altrium, though somewhat less so than the Royal Academy
House Kestrel, the Royal Family of Altrium
Ronar Solmn Kestrel: Ronar Solmn is the patriarch of the Kestrel line, and current king of Altrium. He is an old man now, having reached the age of eighty-five, but the years that have carved furrows in his brow and countenance have not yet begun to weigh him down, and thus while reclining he may be the picture of the elderly invalid, when he speaks none doubt that he has years of rule yet ahead of him. His reign, now in its fiftieth year, has been a picture of justice and prosperity.
Korvus Madar Kestrel: Known as "the Indolent", 48-year-old Korvus Madar is the eldest living child of Ronar Solmn, and is every inch the spoiled nobleman, thrust into position to inherit owing to his elder sister's death in a thopter crash at the age of nineteen. His Wife, Chara Vyn Dawnstar-Kestrel was once a motivated woman beloved by the masses, but after the birth of her third child began receiving visions that drove her insane, and the positive influence she once had on Korvus vanished as her chambers were converted into her prison and asylum.
Terinus Tor Kestrel: The younger of Ronar Solmn's two children, 40-year-old Terinus Tor is a schemer at heart. One of the most feared, if not respected judges in the courts of Altrium, he is a master of the loophole, opening or closing such an escape as he wills with careful interpretation of the law. His wife, Larasha Nueh Albatross-Kestrel, pushes him towards greater ambitions, ever asking the question why his brother's line should rule in place of his own...
Solmn Reyal Kestrel: Solmn Reyal is the eldest child and only son of Korvus Madar. Known as "The White Prince", the 24-year-old is beloved by the people and it is widely suspected that inheritance may pass over his father in favor of a longer reign from Solmn Reyal. An incredibly driven and talented statesman though he is, Solmn has not yet found a wife, which makes him the object of attention from most every young lady of Altrium's high court.
Aluma Tarina Kestrel: Eldest daughter and second child of Korvus Madar, 21-year-old Aluma Tarina is a scientist and an explorer first, a princess a distant second. She is often away from the court on some expedition or another, traveling either with a fleet from the Royal Academy, or in some few cases that have caused no end of terror in older and wiser heads, on her own, as she is an excellent thopter pilot. If pressed, though, she is highly skilled with both bow and sword: better, she says, than finding herself both stranded and defenseless some day. She is engaged to Orin Prestor Sparrow, son of a respected house placed in the Royal Academy.
Nadia Sela Kestrel: Youngest child of Korvus Madar, the 17-year-old Nadia Sela is, deep down, a zealot. She feels herself and her aims in all things to be divinely inspired, which combined with the entitlement that comes from being royal makes her quite possibly the most stubborn living person in Altrium; once she has set her mind on something, there is no force in the world that can change her opinion. Though the two of them keep it a secret, she loves her first cousin Logan Avinar in a way unbefitting their close relation.
Logan Avinar Kestrel: The 20-year-old Logan Avinar is the only child of Terinus Tor. To most, he seems a simple young man, his interests strong in sport and the artful theory of warfare, with little beyond that to mark him as an exceptional personage. However, Logan Avinar is actually quite intelligent, possibly the smartest of the living Kestrels except Aluma Tarina: he simply enjoys what he enjoys, and finds it useful for others to underestimate him. His relationship with Nadia Sela, while not strictly forbidden by the laws of Altrium, would certainly not pass the muster of their fathers or shared grandfather, and somehow he managed to convince her to keep the matter clandestine until such a time as he could devise a way to avoid such scrutiny.
Other Notable people of Altrium
Sodar Lenmis Griffin: Sodar Lenmis is an old soldier, living in a time when there has been no great war to challenge Altrium's forces. Admiral of the Fleet, he is fiercely loyal to Ronar Solmn and the Kestrel line in general, having worked closely with all three living generations and earned the respect of all of them. He was Aluma Tarina Kestrel's teacher in swordsmanship and archery, and Logan Avinar Kestrel's in tactics.
Laran Lars Sparrow: Laran Lars is the current Head of the Royal Academy, serving his third four-year term in that post. The Royal Academy's leadership defers to him despite his relative youth, being only fifty years of age, owing his breadth and depth of knowledge, his zeal, and his ties to the royal family. His specialty is in engineering, and the royal family's fabulous skyship owes many of its advanced features to his design.
Orin Prestor Sparrow: Orin Prestor is the third child and only son of Laran Lars. Seemingly destined to follow in his father's footsteps, at least as far as becoming a man of science goes, Orin is the most driven and active young figure in the Royal Academy, looking both to uncovering the secrets of the past and producing new knowledge for the future. He is engaged to Aluma Tarina Kestrel, who is one year his senior. The match is a good one, chosen by the pair themselves and swiftly given the blessing of Ronar Solmn; the passion of each for the furtherance of knowledge is only matched in this generation by the other.
Garan Halidar Zephyr: Garan Halidar is the High Priest of Serra and the Grand Architect of Altrium, which places him on the board of the Royal Academy as well. Though the Academy accords him only grudging respect, Garan Halidar is the only man in the kingdom to wield both temporal and religious power in significant measure, making him a dangerous man to have as an enemy. The Angel of Glass is his brain-child.
Anatomy of a Solid Cloud
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1: Cloudstone. Cloudstone is the anomalous material at the heart of all the solid clouds. Supposedly, before the Thirteen Days, the Cloud Belt was an immense spider's web of cloudstone stretching across the world, and the clouds we see today are the shattered remnants of that once great structure. Cloudstone, when observed directly is usually a light grey and comes normally by a smooth, glassy texture. It is very hard (rating somewhere in the region of 8 on Moh's scale). It is the cloudstone that seems somehow impervious to gravity, a feature that to a degree seems dependant on the size of the chunk. A quarried block or chunk (which, due to its extreme hardness and the skyfolk's dislike of damaging their homes, is quite a rarity) is simply unfathomably light for stone of its size, and the largest remaining islands float the highest. However, after a certain point (Say, about a cubic acre of the stone), there seems to be a diminishing return: townships float scarcely higher than those isles too small to be regularly inhabited but too large to fall, and the greatest cities not more than a few hundred feet, on average, higher than the townships.
Overloading an island has never been observed: it seems by the time cloudstone is capable of lifting its own weight, it can support about as much matter as you could conceivably load on its top. Most ground-bound (and extraplanar) sages feel that it, and all of the ecosystem it supports, cannot have been natural, and is instead a product of the Old World. Natives, naturally, tend to disagree.
2: Topsoil. While one would suspect the soils of the sky to either be worn-down cloudstone or else imported from the surface, the topsoil of the clouds is another anomaly. A darker grey than cloudstone, it supports plants from the surface passibly, but in it the unique crops of the sky flourish in its strange embrace, and are thus preferred. Some experiments have been attempted: over many years of tilling and growing, sky plants grown in mixed soil appear to convert it, while ground plants grown in the same soil leave its composition unchanged, adding only what is plowed under to the bulk. When taken away from the clouds, the soil can still support its native plants, but will not spread when mixed on the ground. this is thought to be due in part to the lack of Haze.
3: The Haze. What makes the floating rocks that are the solid clouds look like natural clouds, the Haze is a mist of water vapor that clings to cloudstone, forming around it quickly if dispersed somehow. The haze is thin atop the clouds, ranging from an inch or two thick to knee deep depending on the day, though pea-soup thick always. on the sides and bottoms, it clings in thick, matted sheets, clouds sticking to the clouds.
The Underworld
An Underground Ecosystem
Caverns are not exactly the most friendly places for most living creatures to dwell. After all, in an ordinary ecosystem, power comes from the Sun, and the lightless depths are naturally lacking in that resource. What, then, fuels the lives of the underground-dwellers? The answer is a food chain with a basis in mana, and more directly a resource known as Necrosynth.
Necrosynth is a thick, black sludge that wells up from springs in the Underworld. Organic in nature and rich in mana (most of which is black), Necrosynth is the energy source for the entire ecology of the underground realm.
Homarids (and some other creatures) can eat Necrosynth raw in small quantities, and the Homarids use it in their devotionals, believing it to be the blood of the dying world beneath the stone of the lowest caverns or the bottoms of the deepest underground seas. Humans, however, find that ingesting the goo causes violent sickness if only a miniscule amount (say, if food is not washed properly) and death followed by a form of undeath if large quantities are deliberately consumed. However, perfectly edible fungi grow in Necrosynth-laced soil or waters, grazers can feed upon the fungi, and even some carnivores on the grazers.
Necrosynth wellsprings are uncommon enough that large stretches of the underworld are barren stone, but not so rare that humans and other creatures have had trouble surviving. They seem especially prevalent in the underground seas. The homarids say it is because the seas are deep, and the deepest places are closest to the world's heart, while most scholars believe that the water erodes cracks to whatever the source of Necrosynth is. Harvesting from a wellspring seems to induce it to fill up again faster, so both humans and homarids spread Necrosynth around to create fertilized fields or reefs, and are not afraid to harvest it for other purposes.
Humans feed mostly on fungi of various descriptions, pigs (essentially the only domestic animal to have made the transition to cave living well, due to their homarid-like resistance to necrosynth poisoning), and fish.
Geography of the World Below
Tunnels: Natural or artificial, tunnels are long, narrow passages. They are the most likely formation in the underworld to be barren, and human tunnel-towns are rare, small, always built around a Necrosynth wellspring and almost always also built at or near some strategic tunnel crossing. Tunnels (at least, traveled ones) can be as narrow as five feet in any direction, forcing most people to stoop a bit, to around fifteen feet in diameter. Dwellings or other structures in tunnel areas are carved into the walls of the tunnel, rather than assembled in the pathetically small space.
Rooms: Rooms are somewhat open areas. Usually filled with pillars of stone from ceiling to floor, room areas can be massive, but even with the best light available, it's hard to see the full extent of a room due to its density. About a third of all rooms have access to Necrosynth, either in the room or in tunnels nearby, and thus they've made tempting places to settle towns and outposts -- perhaps 5% of all mapped rooms large enough have been settled in some way. An inhabited room is usually easier to find one's way about than a natural one, as some pillars will be used as the cornerstones for buildings, walls built between them ceiling to floor, while others will be knocked out to make for roads or other open spaces.
Vaults and Abysses: Vaults and Abysses are different words for the same thing: a truly massive, totally open area in the underground: it's simply called a Vault if approached from the bottom, or an Abyss if approached from the top. Most Vaults and Abysses have both access to Necrosynth, and some outlet on their bottom to the Great Underground Sea, making them the prime sites for human settlement. Vault towns and Abyss towns are built differently: Vault towns will be constructed much like above-ground cities, while Abyss towns feature "cliff dwellings" on the walls of the abyss, winding stairs leading up and down. Areas that are old enough, or that have easy access from both above and below, may be built in a combination of styles.
The Great Underground Sea: While very little of it is (usually) seen at a time, the deep waters of the underground are all connected, through passages and channels that may go miles without a chance to surface for air. This domain largely belongs to the Homarids, who have been more than happy to share the water's surface and their bounties of fish and Necrosynth with the humans who first came to them as refugees. While initially there was much fear of the alien-looking creatures with their clacking claws and shells that glowed faintly in the darkness, the Homarids proved to be by nature, on the whole, a giving and outgoing people. The humans consider the Homarids part of their civilization, the Homarids consider the humans part of theirs, and each seems to look upon the other as something in need of care and tending, and so they trade, human magical knowledge and finished goods for Homarid crafts and bounties of fish to eat or Necrosynth to sow fields.
Ulal Erigar, the Old City: Ulal Erigar is the oldest permanent human settlement in the Underworld. Built in the largest known Vault, the bottom is covered by both city and several square miles of water open to the air, giving it the look of an above-ground port. Ulal Erigar is the center of authority for the underground civilization, home to its greatest thinkers as well as its greatest centers of population.
The Living and the Unliving
Humans: The humans of the underground have not gone unchanged by their long time away from the sun. They are as a whole a pale people, perhaps not quite albino though given the usual lighting conditions one might be forgiven for mistaking one for a Kor. They tend towards dark hair, and in a mild case of cultural asceticism left over from the lean times when they were still learning to cope, are most often lean or slender, not prone to overindulging in food or drink. Humans obtain light largely by two means: magical lamps that shed a pale, pure white light are common in wealthier areas, but they require good-quality clear or white rock crystal, and thus are not found nearly as often in poor areas of the larger cities, or in room or tunnel towns. In those areas, Necrosynth is burned for light: It burns slowly, releasing a violet glow like an ordinary torch, but neither produces smoke nor heat, and will remain lit if immersed in water. While Necrosynth is important for food production, humans are still sight-focused creatures, and need some source of light almost as much as they need food, and necrosynth torches have never been shown to harm how much there is for the fields.
Homarids: the Homarids of the deep have a somewhat tribal society. Unlike Dominarian Homarids, the shells of the deep Homarids tend to be both pale in hue whether red, green , or blue and also bioluminescent. Homarids revere the world beneath them, and believe that it is alive at its core, but slowly dying since the creation of the world. In their view, they are living just beneath the world's shell, while surface dwellers walk upon it. Though their faith seems to be fatalistic, the homarids do not see it as such. While the world may be 'dying', so is, they say, every living thing, from the moment that it is born -- and the world will certainly outlive any Homarid. They view the world-entity as a benevolent one, that gives its blood, the Necrosynth that its children may have sustenance and its body that they might have a space to live in. Homarids see the undead as sad creatures, doomed to not pass on even as the world does, and thus do not seek Undeath themselves.
Necrosynth Liches: A human that consumes too much raw Necrosynth (the amount varies by weight and metabolism, but generally hovers around half a cup on one sitting, so it's hard to do accidentally) will die and promptly reanimate as a zombie-like creature, still possessing its former intelligence and personality. This first stage of necrosynth-induced undeath is unstable, and will die again in about three days if action is not taken to preserve it. Oddly, this action has been found to be the application of more Necrosynth as an embalming fluid, replacing the blood of the former human. Beings preserved in this way become Necrosynth Liches, their undeath stabilized. Necrosynth liches do not rot like normal undead, though some may "let themselves go" and develop a rotted appearance as they suffer from moderate to severe fungus problems. Some, however, that avoid sprouting mushrooms, can go hundreds of years looking like a fresh corpse or possibly passing for a living person with oily skin. Most, however, choose to embrace the decay. Once they have been preserved, their flesh can be removed safely by flensing and then cleaned by the action of fungus until only blackened bones remain, wreathed in a purple light like burning Necrosynth.
Other Corporeal Undead: While most humans who choose to become undead do so by becoming Necrosynth liches, some humans do not choose undeath, or choose some other variety. The underworld is thus home to myriad forms of zombie and skeleton. Vampirism is believed to have died out, but one never knows what's lurking in the darkness.
Ghosts: Ghosts in the Underworld are not (at least solely) the result of Underworld natives. It seems, scholars have found, that souls and in fact the life energy of all things has a tendency to flow down, from the world above, through the underworld, and into the solid stone below. This has baffled human scholars, but makes perfect sense to the Homarids who see it as life returning to its source. Both agree that this flow of energy is probably, at least in part, responsible for replenishing the Necrosynth and perhaps the natural mana of the world above. The fact remains that some spirits, instead of steadily flowing inward as simple energy, retain a shred of their personality and become lost in the network of caves of the underworld. They are largely harmless, noted only by a sudden chill, the flickering of a flame, or the motion of some unattended object, but occasionally they manifest and either make trouble or may be communed with by the living (or other undead). Some ghosts are exceedingly old, and scholars bent on recapturing some of the might of the Old World seek them out for their fragmented knowledge.
Rulership: The Ulal Conclave
The Ulal Conclave is a body of human scholars, wise undead, and Homarid shamans that sets down laws and agendas for their civilization. A seat on the Conclave is, for humans and undead, voted in by the Conclave and lasts for life and any following undeath, and the Homarids always send a delegation such that they equal half the number of human and once-human conclave members, or one third the total of the Conclave. In a large part, the Conclave is concerned with expanding their knowledge and maintaining the safety and stability of the Underworld. As such, they fund exploratory expeditions both throughout the underworld to map it and discover its hidden secrets, and occasionally to the surface in an attempt to salvage some bit of knowledge that may have survived or been recreated. In recent years, the discovery of the ancient thing known as the Corpse God has drawn increasing interest from the Conclave, as they attempt to find a way to excavate it and transport it, physically or magically, to Ulal Erigar where they can plumb its secrets.
Caverns are not exactly the most friendly places for most living creatures to dwell. After all, in an ordinary ecosystem, power comes from the Sun, and the lightless depths are naturally lacking in that resource. What, then, fuels the lives of the underground-dwellers? The answer is a food chain with a basis in mana, and more directly a resource known as Necrosynth.
Necrosynth is a thick, black sludge that wells up from springs in the Underworld. Organic in nature and rich in mana (most of which is black), Necrosynth is the energy source for the entire ecology of the underground realm.
Homarids (and some other creatures) can eat Necrosynth raw in small quantities, and the Homarids use it in their devotionals, believing it to be the blood of the dying world beneath the stone of the lowest caverns or the bottoms of the deepest underground seas. Humans, however, find that ingesting the goo causes violent sickness if only a miniscule amount (say, if food is not washed properly) and death followed by a form of undeath if large quantities are deliberately consumed. However, perfectly edible fungi grow in Necrosynth-laced soil or waters, grazers can feed upon the fungi, and even some carnivores on the grazers.
Necrosynth wellsprings are uncommon enough that large stretches of the underworld are barren stone, but not so rare that humans and other creatures have had trouble surviving. They seem especially prevalent in the underground seas. The homarids say it is because the seas are deep, and the deepest places are closest to the world's heart, while most scholars believe that the water erodes cracks to whatever the source of Necrosynth is. Harvesting from a wellspring seems to induce it to fill up again faster, so both humans and homarids spread Necrosynth around to create fertilized fields or reefs, and are not afraid to harvest it for other purposes.
Humans feed mostly on fungi of various descriptions, pigs (essentially the only domestic animal to have made the transition to cave living well, due to their homarid-like resistance to necrosynth poisoning), and fish.
Geography of the World Below
Tunnels: Natural or artificial, tunnels are long, narrow passages. They are the most likely formation in the underworld to be barren, and human tunnel-towns are rare, small, always built around a Necrosynth wellspring and almost always also built at or near some strategic tunnel crossing. Tunnels (at least, traveled ones) can be as narrow as five feet in any direction, forcing most people to stoop a bit, to around fifteen feet in diameter. Dwellings or other structures in tunnel areas are carved into the walls of the tunnel, rather than assembled in the pathetically small space.
Rooms: Rooms are somewhat open areas. Usually filled with pillars of stone from ceiling to floor, room areas can be massive, but even with the best light available, it's hard to see the full extent of a room due to its density. About a third of all rooms have access to Necrosynth, either in the room or in tunnels nearby, and thus they've made tempting places to settle towns and outposts -- perhaps 5% of all mapped rooms large enough have been settled in some way. An inhabited room is usually easier to find one's way about than a natural one, as some pillars will be used as the cornerstones for buildings, walls built between them ceiling to floor, while others will be knocked out to make for roads or other open spaces.
Vaults and Abysses: Vaults and Abysses are different words for the same thing: a truly massive, totally open area in the underground: it's simply called a Vault if approached from the bottom, or an Abyss if approached from the top. Most Vaults and Abysses have both access to Necrosynth, and some outlet on their bottom to the Great Underground Sea, making them the prime sites for human settlement. Vault towns and Abyss towns are built differently: Vault towns will be constructed much like above-ground cities, while Abyss towns feature "cliff dwellings" on the walls of the abyss, winding stairs leading up and down. Areas that are old enough, or that have easy access from both above and below, may be built in a combination of styles.
The Great Underground Sea: While very little of it is (usually) seen at a time, the deep waters of the underground are all connected, through passages and channels that may go miles without a chance to surface for air. This domain largely belongs to the Homarids, who have been more than happy to share the water's surface and their bounties of fish and Necrosynth with the humans who first came to them as refugees. While initially there was much fear of the alien-looking creatures with their clacking claws and shells that glowed faintly in the darkness, the Homarids proved to be by nature, on the whole, a giving and outgoing people. The humans consider the Homarids part of their civilization, the Homarids consider the humans part of theirs, and each seems to look upon the other as something in need of care and tending, and so they trade, human magical knowledge and finished goods for Homarid crafts and bounties of fish to eat or Necrosynth to sow fields.
Ulal Erigar, the Old City: Ulal Erigar is the oldest permanent human settlement in the Underworld. Built in the largest known Vault, the bottom is covered by both city and several square miles of water open to the air, giving it the look of an above-ground port. Ulal Erigar is the center of authority for the underground civilization, home to its greatest thinkers as well as its greatest centers of population.
The Living and the Unliving
Humans: The humans of the underground have not gone unchanged by their long time away from the sun. They are as a whole a pale people, perhaps not quite albino though given the usual lighting conditions one might be forgiven for mistaking one for a Kor. They tend towards dark hair, and in a mild case of cultural asceticism left over from the lean times when they were still learning to cope, are most often lean or slender, not prone to overindulging in food or drink. Humans obtain light largely by two means: magical lamps that shed a pale, pure white light are common in wealthier areas, but they require good-quality clear or white rock crystal, and thus are not found nearly as often in poor areas of the larger cities, or in room or tunnel towns. In those areas, Necrosynth is burned for light: It burns slowly, releasing a violet glow like an ordinary torch, but neither produces smoke nor heat, and will remain lit if immersed in water. While Necrosynth is important for food production, humans are still sight-focused creatures, and need some source of light almost as much as they need food, and necrosynth torches have never been shown to harm how much there is for the fields.
Homarids: the Homarids of the deep have a somewhat tribal society. Unlike Dominarian Homarids, the shells of the deep Homarids tend to be both pale in hue whether red, green , or blue and also bioluminescent. Homarids revere the world beneath them, and believe that it is alive at its core, but slowly dying since the creation of the world. In their view, they are living just beneath the world's shell, while surface dwellers walk upon it. Though their faith seems to be fatalistic, the homarids do not see it as such. While the world may be 'dying', so is, they say, every living thing, from the moment that it is born -- and the world will certainly outlive any Homarid. They view the world-entity as a benevolent one, that gives its blood, the Necrosynth that its children may have sustenance and its body that they might have a space to live in. Homarids see the undead as sad creatures, doomed to not pass on even as the world does, and thus do not seek Undeath themselves.
Necrosynth Liches: A human that consumes too much raw Necrosynth (the amount varies by weight and metabolism, but generally hovers around half a cup on one sitting, so it's hard to do accidentally) will die and promptly reanimate as a zombie-like creature, still possessing its former intelligence and personality. This first stage of necrosynth-induced undeath is unstable, and will die again in about three days if action is not taken to preserve it. Oddly, this action has been found to be the application of more Necrosynth as an embalming fluid, replacing the blood of the former human. Beings preserved in this way become Necrosynth Liches, their undeath stabilized. Necrosynth liches do not rot like normal undead, though some may "let themselves go" and develop a rotted appearance as they suffer from moderate to severe fungus problems. Some, however, that avoid sprouting mushrooms, can go hundreds of years looking like a fresh corpse or possibly passing for a living person with oily skin. Most, however, choose to embrace the decay. Once they have been preserved, their flesh can be removed safely by flensing and then cleaned by the action of fungus until only blackened bones remain, wreathed in a purple light like burning Necrosynth.
Other Corporeal Undead: While most humans who choose to become undead do so by becoming Necrosynth liches, some humans do not choose undeath, or choose some other variety. The underworld is thus home to myriad forms of zombie and skeleton. Vampirism is believed to have died out, but one never knows what's lurking in the darkness.
Ghosts: Ghosts in the Underworld are not (at least solely) the result of Underworld natives. It seems, scholars have found, that souls and in fact the life energy of all things has a tendency to flow down, from the world above, through the underworld, and into the solid stone below. This has baffled human scholars, but makes perfect sense to the Homarids who see it as life returning to its source. Both agree that this flow of energy is probably, at least in part, responsible for replenishing the Necrosynth and perhaps the natural mana of the world above. The fact remains that some spirits, instead of steadily flowing inward as simple energy, retain a shred of their personality and become lost in the network of caves of the underworld. They are largely harmless, noted only by a sudden chill, the flickering of a flame, or the motion of some unattended object, but occasionally they manifest and either make trouble or may be communed with by the living (or other undead). Some ghosts are exceedingly old, and scholars bent on recapturing some of the might of the Old World seek them out for their fragmented knowledge.
Rulership: The Ulal Conclave
The Ulal Conclave is a body of human scholars, wise undead, and Homarid shamans that sets down laws and agendas for their civilization. A seat on the Conclave is, for humans and undead, voted in by the Conclave and lasts for life and any following undeath, and the Homarids always send a delegation such that they equal half the number of human and once-human conclave members, or one third the total of the Conclave. In a large part, the Conclave is concerned with expanding their knowledge and maintaining the safety and stability of the Underworld. As such, they fund exploratory expeditions both throughout the underworld to map it and discover its hidden secrets, and occasionally to the surface in an attempt to salvage some bit of knowledge that may have survived or been recreated. In recent years, the discovery of the ancient thing known as the Corpse God has drawn increasing interest from the Conclave, as they attempt to find a way to excavate it and transport it, physically or magically, to Ulal Erigar where they can plumb its secrets.
Highland Confederation
History and Culture
While a deadly jungle grows in the rifts carved by the Thirteen Days War, the plateaus between them are another story. Mostly arid scrubland, they aren’t the best place to make a home, but then the residents of the highlands couldn’t really afford to be picky.
Initially, each plateau, however big or small, was isolated. The inhabitants of one or another were of different races, and came from different civilizations. Living with former enemies and strange creatures was hard, no doubt, but continuing to war or retreating to the deadly jungle below were both less acceptable solutions, and while each small group might have wanted to struggle alone, to eek out a living from the highlands they had to come together, however grudgingly.
The cultures that developed, for the fact that they did not particularly care for their neighbors at first, had a strong focus on freedom and self-determination that the initial survivors passed down to their children. Eventually, as is the way of the world, some of the letter was reinterpreted, but the spirit remained and perhaps even grew stronger as the Plateaus signaled one another, and built bridges in the realization that they each had a better chance of surviving if they were willing to survive together in lean times rather than totally apart.
Now, all the Highlands exist under what passes for a single government: at the very least, no plateau makes war on any other, and highlanders accept the right of other highlanders to exist. But while a system of representation exists, there is no central power, and very little governing is actually done, especially beyond the local level: the highlanders could not tolerate sacrificing self-rule for the order that a more complicated system would bring.
In the Highlands, there are three Great Laws, laws that hold throughout every plateau and will be known by every resident
1) A being has the right to exist, and may not be destroyed in any case that would not otherwise result in the destruction of another being.
2) A being may do as it pleases, save where this would destroy another being or prevent that being from acting freely.
3) A being may hold any property it pleases, save where this would violate this or any other of the great laws.
Functionally, it means that one cannot murder or harm another except in self defense (as killing otherwise would violate the first law, and malicious harm is largely considered to violate the spirit of the second). The highlanders do not abide slavery or theft but do not enforce communal resources, and will not generally deprive a criminal of life, freedom, or property as punishment: When one breaks a law, if it is proved on him the sentence is either always corporal in nature or exile to the jungle below, which while in effect a death sentence absolves any highlander of the deed.
This is the beating heart of the highlands culture: Any sentient being is free to do as it will, to pursue its own hopes and its dreams, to look out for itself and care for itself. They are free to succeed or free to fail, free to live ascetic lives or indulge every vice they can afford.
Races
The Highlands started with a small and diverse population. Humans, Elves, goblins, orcs, ogres, cat people, serpent people, loxodons, and vedalken are just a few of the races that made up the seed of the highlands, and many of those were transformed by the fallout of deadly weapons used in the Thirteen Days War. As such, there are nearly no pure-bred examples of any race. At some point, if they were physically capable, they crossed with some other race. That is not to say that humans, goblins, and the like do not exist, just that there might be some drop of elf, or dwarf, or merfolk blood hiding somewhere in their family tree.
There are, however, highlands mutts – humanoids with a racial background that does not leave them conveniently able to be placed in categories such as “human”. Of these, there are two sorts.
The first, and more common, are the mongrels – those for whom a mixed racial background and magical corruption of their ancestors has not been kind to. A mongrel is marked, more or less, by having the out-of-place features of multiple humanoid races (and often times, some features known to no humanoids): An elf’s ears, a goblin’s skin tone, a human’s frame, a trunk, and somewhat lopsided build in general might be found on one, for instance. Others are stranger still, and are afflicted by a race-divided form of genetic chimerism: place a goblins head on an elf’s torso, with a dwarven left arm, a leonine right, and a serpent person’s tail instead of legs, with sharp divides between. It may look like a mad wizard’s experiment, but it is the result of some unfortunate results of interbreeding.
In general, mongrels are at least considered to be slower of thought and less mentally stable than their less degenerate cousins, but these stereotypes are hard to prove and depend entirely on perspective. While not often counted among the very wise by human standards, the average mongrel can be expected to think circles around the average goblin, for instance.
The second variety of extreme hybrids are the Paragons. They are those who have won the genetic and magical lottery of traits, and each paragon will represent a subtle blending of constituent races, smoothly sharing traits from many humanoids while others remain recessive. While many, perhaps most Paragons are conventionally beautiful to the aesthetics of at least a few of the more common humanoid races, and while their blend of features might let them pass for a member of some more normal race at a distance, they remain a bit uncanny in person: there is always something not quite right about a Paragon, at least to an outsider to the highlands. Those used to mixed-race ancestry or who share it do not have the strict aesthetic senses that set visitors on edge.
Because humans were the dominant race, most paragons look mostly human, though they do display some exotic phenotypes: green skin inherited from a hint of goblin ancestry, or wide and glassy eyes that suggest a few drops of merfolk. As for their personalities, the general impression is that they are the opposite of mongrels: favored with the best parts of all their constituents: The wisdom of elves, the drive of humans, the pride of the cat folk, guile of serpent kin, and so on. This may not be any more true than the beliefs about the mongrels, but since most highlanders are more comfortable around paragons than they are around other distinct groups, paragons often find themselves advantaged as traders and officials.
Magic and Technology
The highlanders are scavengers. By and large, they don’t have much, but they’re experts at getting more and getting more out of what they get. As such, they don’t have terribly advanced artifice or technology – most of it is bought or swindled from Altrium, the Children of the Living Flame, or the Great Crater, but are excellent at using the artifacts they do have.
In addition to the same arcane traditions one finds throughout the multiverse, the Highlanders, especially Paragons, have developed magic that draws on the wielder’s bloodline. The strongest practitioners (Called Familimancers, Stemamancers, or Atavumancers depending on where you are in the Highlands.) practice arts that grant them abilities that would normally be found only among the most gifted of a particular member of their family tree. A Paragon familimancer might call upon elven blood a hundred generations removed and find in it the potency to mimic, for a time, the feats of an elvish archdruid.
The bloodline magic of the highlands has its limits, though: almost all of it requires blood as a component, whether the caster’s own or more spilled. Usually a few drops will suffice, but if a familimancer attempts to aim above his skill, the results can be ugly.
Offensively, Bloodline magic can also be used sympathetically, exploiting the ties between the practitioner and the victim, or the ties between one victim and other, distant subjects.
While a deadly jungle grows in the rifts carved by the Thirteen Days War, the plateaus between them are another story. Mostly arid scrubland, they aren’t the best place to make a home, but then the residents of the highlands couldn’t really afford to be picky.
Initially, each plateau, however big or small, was isolated. The inhabitants of one or another were of different races, and came from different civilizations. Living with former enemies and strange creatures was hard, no doubt, but continuing to war or retreating to the deadly jungle below were both less acceptable solutions, and while each small group might have wanted to struggle alone, to eek out a living from the highlands they had to come together, however grudgingly.
The cultures that developed, for the fact that they did not particularly care for their neighbors at first, had a strong focus on freedom and self-determination that the initial survivors passed down to their children. Eventually, as is the way of the world, some of the letter was reinterpreted, but the spirit remained and perhaps even grew stronger as the Plateaus signaled one another, and built bridges in the realization that they each had a better chance of surviving if they were willing to survive together in lean times rather than totally apart.
Now, all the Highlands exist under what passes for a single government: at the very least, no plateau makes war on any other, and highlanders accept the right of other highlanders to exist. But while a system of representation exists, there is no central power, and very little governing is actually done, especially beyond the local level: the highlanders could not tolerate sacrificing self-rule for the order that a more complicated system would bring.
In the Highlands, there are three Great Laws, laws that hold throughout every plateau and will be known by every resident
1) A being has the right to exist, and may not be destroyed in any case that would not otherwise result in the destruction of another being.
2) A being may do as it pleases, save where this would destroy another being or prevent that being from acting freely.
3) A being may hold any property it pleases, save where this would violate this or any other of the great laws.
Functionally, it means that one cannot murder or harm another except in self defense (as killing otherwise would violate the first law, and malicious harm is largely considered to violate the spirit of the second). The highlanders do not abide slavery or theft but do not enforce communal resources, and will not generally deprive a criminal of life, freedom, or property as punishment: When one breaks a law, if it is proved on him the sentence is either always corporal in nature or exile to the jungle below, which while in effect a death sentence absolves any highlander of the deed.
This is the beating heart of the highlands culture: Any sentient being is free to do as it will, to pursue its own hopes and its dreams, to look out for itself and care for itself. They are free to succeed or free to fail, free to live ascetic lives or indulge every vice they can afford.
Races
The Highlands started with a small and diverse population. Humans, Elves, goblins, orcs, ogres, cat people, serpent people, loxodons, and vedalken are just a few of the races that made up the seed of the highlands, and many of those were transformed by the fallout of deadly weapons used in the Thirteen Days War. As such, there are nearly no pure-bred examples of any race. At some point, if they were physically capable, they crossed with some other race. That is not to say that humans, goblins, and the like do not exist, just that there might be some drop of elf, or dwarf, or merfolk blood hiding somewhere in their family tree.
There are, however, highlands mutts – humanoids with a racial background that does not leave them conveniently able to be placed in categories such as “human”. Of these, there are two sorts.
The first, and more common, are the mongrels – those for whom a mixed racial background and magical corruption of their ancestors has not been kind to. A mongrel is marked, more or less, by having the out-of-place features of multiple humanoid races (and often times, some features known to no humanoids): An elf’s ears, a goblin’s skin tone, a human’s frame, a trunk, and somewhat lopsided build in general might be found on one, for instance. Others are stranger still, and are afflicted by a race-divided form of genetic chimerism: place a goblins head on an elf’s torso, with a dwarven left arm, a leonine right, and a serpent person’s tail instead of legs, with sharp divides between. It may look like a mad wizard’s experiment, but it is the result of some unfortunate results of interbreeding.
In general, mongrels are at least considered to be slower of thought and less mentally stable than their less degenerate cousins, but these stereotypes are hard to prove and depend entirely on perspective. While not often counted among the very wise by human standards, the average mongrel can be expected to think circles around the average goblin, for instance.
The second variety of extreme hybrids are the Paragons. They are those who have won the genetic and magical lottery of traits, and each paragon will represent a subtle blending of constituent races, smoothly sharing traits from many humanoids while others remain recessive. While many, perhaps most Paragons are conventionally beautiful to the aesthetics of at least a few of the more common humanoid races, and while their blend of features might let them pass for a member of some more normal race at a distance, they remain a bit uncanny in person: there is always something not quite right about a Paragon, at least to an outsider to the highlands. Those used to mixed-race ancestry or who share it do not have the strict aesthetic senses that set visitors on edge.
Because humans were the dominant race, most paragons look mostly human, though they do display some exotic phenotypes: green skin inherited from a hint of goblin ancestry, or wide and glassy eyes that suggest a few drops of merfolk. As for their personalities, the general impression is that they are the opposite of mongrels: favored with the best parts of all their constituents: The wisdom of elves, the drive of humans, the pride of the cat folk, guile of serpent kin, and so on. This may not be any more true than the beliefs about the mongrels, but since most highlanders are more comfortable around paragons than they are around other distinct groups, paragons often find themselves advantaged as traders and officials.
Magic and Technology
The highlanders are scavengers. By and large, they don’t have much, but they’re experts at getting more and getting more out of what they get. As such, they don’t have terribly advanced artifice or technology – most of it is bought or swindled from Altrium, the Children of the Living Flame, or the Great Crater, but are excellent at using the artifacts they do have.
In addition to the same arcane traditions one finds throughout the multiverse, the Highlanders, especially Paragons, have developed magic that draws on the wielder’s bloodline. The strongest practitioners (Called Familimancers, Stemamancers, or Atavumancers depending on where you are in the Highlands.) practice arts that grant them abilities that would normally be found only among the most gifted of a particular member of their family tree. A Paragon familimancer might call upon elven blood a hundred generations removed and find in it the potency to mimic, for a time, the feats of an elvish archdruid.
The bloodline magic of the highlands has its limits, though: almost all of it requires blood as a component, whether the caster’s own or more spilled. Usually a few drops will suffice, but if a familimancer attempts to aim above his skill, the results can be ugly.
Offensively, Bloodline magic can also be used sympathetically, exploiting the ties between the practitioner and the victim, or the ties between one victim and other, distant subjects.