Shattered World Base Lore

The Gods Welcome You

I am Xi.

I have created everything that is. I am the beginning, the current, and the end.

As I forged world after world, my children bickered and fought over their petty trifles. I grew weary of their strife. Eventually, they grew weary of it as well. When I was ready to complete the masterpiece that mortals call the prime material plane, I created Syseria.

Sanctuary of the Lost... Playground of the Damned... Home of the Cursed... Syseria has been called many things by its somewhat bitter inhabitants. The sheer vastness of this world is daunting to all its people, although airships and spacefaring are utilized to remedy this. It has a beautiful golden-yellow sun, and an offset orbit and an abstract (and constantly changing) axis of rotation. This can sometimes produce warm lakes close by to glaciers, deserts neighbored to forests, and overall, a vast array of geography and climate. Its myriad and diverse creatures couple with abundant plantlife to breathe life into this world. Even in desert or glacial portions of the world, the knowledgeable can easily procure the necessary requirements for survival with a reasonable amount of foraging.

On Syseria, magic is abundant. Although not overly so, in fact what would generally be classified as excessive magic on other worlds is only utilized for communication, construction/demolition, and travel schemes using magical devices and energy, which are not uncommon. To your average spellcaster, this may mean little, because they do not wield a magical power greater than what one would expect. Psionics, however, are rare and surrounded by suspicion, bigotry, fear, and myth.

Syseria’s most intelligent races have certainly accomplished a lot. They thwarted the Chaos Age, and ended the Dark Times. They learned of magical energies, and how to shape them into powerful spells. The gnomes also invented many wondrous nonmagical machines which Syserians value and use daily. All in all, they have advanced from primitive, stone spear-wielding cave-people to what they are today, and in the process have built up great empires quite successfully.

The peoples of Syseria are in some ways different from the other worlds I have made. They are aware that they are on a spherical planet that orbits a sun spinning through wildspace. When major events and catastrophes happen, they do not automatically assume the gods did it. Their mindset is comparatively modern, literacy rates are higher, university attendance is higher; all in all they have a great deal of sophistication.

One would wonder, then, why its inhabitants can be so bitter.

You see, Syseria has one other name: Land of Bloodstone. When Exodus, King of Evil, visited Syseria, he discovered bits of solid matter that were intertwined with the very stuff of life: energy (magical and mundane,) Volution, The Sun, Time, and Gravity to name a few. It is quite possible that more exist, although it remains to be seen.

These bits of raw life have made Syseria the target for many a power-hungry individuals’ schema, including, at one point, my children. It is true that they had a treaty not to intervene with Syserian affairs (see Syserian History,) but Kynteelas, Lord of Deception, had managed to manipulate time in such a way that he was not part of the pact, and as such, he was allowed to travel to Syseria and obtain the bloodstones.

And then, there is what some classify as the Granddaddy of all bloodstones: the Chaos Stones. These did not originate on Syseria, and were certainly never appropriate for the mortals worlds. The mortal plane is exactly where they ended up, however, when the Aasimar portals failed and exploded. These bits of Chaos ravaged everything they touched, not to mention brought forth creatures of chaos, and more specifically, the Chaos Age.

Even though most of the bloodstone has been teleported away or has departed from Syseria of its own accord, there is still enough that in the darkest corners of the world, that the tingling rush of raw power can still be felt. The most powerful wizards can still be disintegrated upon practice of their craft. And if you stop movement, hold you breath and listen carefully, the cackling of mad demons can still be heard.

I, Xi, the Lord of Creation, had intended this world to be my greatest triumph, a gem of perfection. This was the only task in which I have endeavored that I failed.

Calidorn Welcomes You

I am Calidorn Izzinbor. I am a manifestation of an unknown god whom oversees time, created in corporeal form to because time was being manipulated in diabolic ways to "restore" (introduce) Chaos to the world. My job is to make sure it does not happen, and to help ensure that time cannot be manipulated by just anybody.

During Terrakus' stay on Syseria, He unearthed, among other things, a positively amazing substance: Bloodstone. Bloodstone is a defining, essential force of Syseria, omnipotent and omnipresent.

Bloodstones are the embodiment of the driving forces that rule, drive, inspire, and empower all that is, was, and will be. There are many bloodstones of many different types, and likely they exist on many different worlds, but Syseria is currently the only one that has discovered them.

In their material forms, bloodstones appear as pebbles, stones, monoliths, or boulders of various size, shapes, and colors, sometimes as tiny as a grain of sand, and rarer than the rarest of precious gems. Their potency, however, vastly exceeds that of any other known magic.

If their power can be harnessed (a truly rare situation), they can level entire cities, destroy an army, create an army, corrupt the most powerful and pure of heroes, and cause insanity, or worse, turn the victim into a being of the power it embodies merely by touching it.

Its power can only be utilized by demons or devils of the more powerful like, demi-gods, and gods. A mortal's chance of using a bloodstone without suffering the ill effects are nil. Further, some stones require special situations or rituals to be effective. The negative effects of attempting to use them, however, will be felt regardless.

There's no need to go looking for bloodstone, you won't find it (some say it finds you) You don't want to find it. While powerful in the hands of those who can control it, it corrupts and destroys those who can't. Attempting to destroy it is also a pointless endeavor.

While most bloodstone has departed from Syseria, there still remains enough to cast a dark shadow across the world.

Bloodstones

Bloodstones are the material embodiment of the forces that sculpt the universe and the entirety of the prime material plane. They represent all things, all energies, and all manner of concepts that mere mortals could never hope to comprehend. They both embody and define reality.

All bloodstones have the same traits. They give off energy, indeed their very fabric is intertwined with all the omnipotence of every universe.

It is by these definitions that the six major classifications of bloodstone have come about: Time, Chaos, Magic, Sun (or Nova), Void, and Volution.

Dwarven worshipers of Udidia also believe the planets themselves to be bloodstones of Material. By definition, their belief is untrue, however it is not without credence. But it is well known that all bloodstones are small in size, and cannot be touched and should not be approached. A planet obviously does not fall into this category.

Time Stones

When this, and many other worlds, were forged by the Father God, his sons and daughters bickered and fought amongst themselves, using the Father God's worlds as their battlegrounds, and their inhabitants as their pawns. These wars continued for a million eternities, and will continue forever; there is no resolution.

Until Syseria.

Syseria, one of the final worlds, or perhaps THE final world, forged by the Father God, was to be made into a gem of triumph, a "perfect" world on which it's inhabitants would flourish, free of war and greed. The Father God forced his children into a pact they made with each other and the Father God himself, never to directly intervene with the affairs of Syseria.

Exodus, the God of all evil, however, had other plans. With a world in which direct godly intervention was nonexistent, he could prepare a nesting place for himself and his minions, where they could grow in power and number unabated, and begin a systematic takeover and/or destruction of this and other worlds, thus destroying the other Gods by killing their followers.

Exodus secretly told Kynteelas, the God of Deception of his plans, and sided with him to accomplish a wholly unprecedented feat: to successfully deceive and betray the Father God. Through manipulation of the events of past, and of time itself, Exodus and Kynteelas had never existed when the agreement was made to refrain from meddling with the affairs of Syseria and the Syserians.

To explain how this is possible, think of time as a river. Although the true nature of time usually cannot be comprehended by mortals, this is a fair comparison. You can actually dam the flow of time, and channel it. This is what Kynteelas did. He channeled his own existance into a different timeline, and rejoined our river of time after the pact was made.

If ever a proper guidebook of time manipulation were written, it would be exceedingly short. Just don't do it.

Even the gods themselves feel it's unwise. There are several elements of time manipulation that make it an incredibly dangerous endeavor.

One, anything changed in the distant past might leave gaping holes which snowball into entire chunks of reality being removed from the present, or worse, your own existence (thus creating the dreaded paradox.) Two, your original intent could backfire drastically. For example, if you intend to remove a portion of history that seemed exceedingly evil, you could find that it had more than a little to do with what is currently thought of as "good," as people will learn from tragedy.

There are also dangers of traveling to the future. With the distant future, the most obvious is, you're not ready for it, and it's not ready for you. You could encounter a creature or technology that you don't understand or doesn't understand you, and it can possibly cause insanity, or some sort of mind-bending, or it may simply kill you outright. With the near future, knowing what happens to you, your loved ones, your home, or your possessions, can sometimes have disastrous effects. For example, if you see your own death, it can cause a terrible binge of bloodthirsty madness (which may, in turn, cause your death.)

Time travel, however, can be done, and is done, successfully. The principle of time travel is simple. You are at point A, you want to get to point B. You just need a way to travel.

We all have one method of travel: We all move forward through time at sixty seconds per minute, sixty minutes per hour, and twenty-four hours per day. Other methods include magical, and those that the Gods and Aasimar possessed, neither of which mortals can understand.

Real Time, the present, is the point it which the "main" (for lack of a better term) reality is. From here, the past is but memories and chronicles, the future can only be guessed at.

Moving into the past or future by magical means is also possible. There is one thing to keep in mind: Nothing is carved in stone. Not the present, nor the past, and least of all the future. Reality extends outward from the point of the present in two cones of probability, past and future. Within structures exist many universes possibilities.

When changing events of the past and returning to the present, one often finds drastic and sweeping changes have affected their lives and societies. The reason for this is obvious, history forges the present, therefore changing history changes the present. For example, if the king of the Empire City had an excellent plan for trading mined goods with elves and humans to generate more money, and it started a war between all three nations, then some powerful heroes may wish to change that fact. They go back and manage their way into the council appointed to bring the king's plan into law. Using whatever means necessary, they remove the idea from the king's head, and it is eventually forgotten. Thus, the war is never fought, and any effects of the war are never felt.

Changing the past may seemingly have instantaneous effects to those returning to a distant future, however, that is not the case. A period of time after the change passes where there is no deviation from the original timeline, save for the change made. However, there will soon be something in the original timeline that was supposed to be affected by what was changed. The effects of significant actions often snowball into entire parts of society simply not existing.

Changing the past can be thought of as erasing and rewriting penciled script.

And the future can be thought of as a thumbnail sketch, a tentative rough draft of events to come. The future is only a possibility, sometimes not even the most likely one. Changing events of the future, however, never has any effect on the present, unless you were to prevent or encourage future time travelers who wish to go to the present or past.

No one is quite sure where time stones came from, although many a sage will theorize. The beginning of the universe is probably a good place to start, but that's only a guess. If you believe the "big bang" theory, then you might think of bits of time originating there.

The only way for mortals to travel through time on Syseria is with Time Stones. They are among the most difficult to control, and tend to have the most aloof personalities, fading in and out of existence, moving from place to place, or seemingly disappearing from the planet entirely (I'd wager they actually move through time.)

When the heroes of the second Bloodstone War defeated Terrakus and Kynteelas, all Time Stones were relinquished to me, and now the only way time travel possible is with my permission.

For more information, consult Calidorn’s Primer.

Chaos Stones

An incomprehensibly long time ago, the first sentient race in existence, known as Aasimar, colonized all worlds by a means of magical and technological transportation that we still do not understand to this day.

It is theorized that the original Astral plane was pure liquid Chaos. The Aasimar managed the flow of this Chaos to travel, assisted by their magic, to every world currently thought to be in existence.

They had, using a combination of both powerful magic and technology, erected a series of portals with which they could travel from planet to planet. Because of the vast amount of magical, mental, and mundane energy used in the portals, only one or two was erected per solar system. It was normally placed on opposing ends of a planet, or, if not, at the largest land mass.

First the Aasimar traveled to each planet in their solar system (obviously, because many planets would have environments and atmospheres in which no life could survive, protection shields were placed around the Aasimar who traveled). They also took a part of themselves, their own essence, and used it to create a new race of workers to help them with their populating and building: dwarves. That's not to imply in any way that the Aasimar meant to enslave the dwarves, the Aasimar were as good and pure as the dwarves, and that's how it was meant to be. As the dwarves evolved, they built up great empires, vast networks of mines and tunnels through mighty mountains, and trading schemes with Aasimar societies. Dwarves and Aasimar lived in harmony.

The Gods, however, opposed the Aasimar’ experiments. They did not want the mortal beings of the universe to think they too were gods and could simply create life as they saw fit. Regardless, the Aasimar felt compelled to continue their work.

After the dwarves came the elves. Once again extracting a part of themselves for their creation, the Aasimar found the elves to have excellent longevity, dexterity, and intelligence. Elves built up tribes, societies, and eventually great nations.

The next race created were humans. Humans were a failed experiment, originally intended to be more versatile than dwarves and elves, however, they ended up being chaotic (by Aasimar standards,) temperamental, overly ambitious, and short-lived.

While overseeing and controlling the evolution of races up to this point, they never directly intervened, and the Aasimar were fully aware that they were the creators of all races, although the other races were not.

Millennia passed this way, with the Aasimar traveling from one planet to another, colonizing as they went. Evolution on every planet was strengthened and quickened by the Aasimar, while they never directly interfered with the actual behavior of the life.

The Gods continued to warn the Aasimar that they disapproved of their behavior, but the Aasimar knew they would tolerate it, being the mild amount of intervention that it was, and colonizing is something the Gods expect of sentient races anyway.

As far as Syseria goes, it was perfect. More perfect than any world the Aasimar had previously found (yes, even out of the thousands they had founded before). It had a beautiful blue sun, lush with flora and virile fauna.

And it had one major thing that no other founded planet had before it: life. There were already creatures wandering about this planet, whose presence the Aasimar presumed to be a result of a chance combination of chemicals and materials, but that was not true. It was a new experience for the Aasimar, since they had never before seen a life form on any other planet that they had not created themselves.

When the Aasimar arrived on this world, it was clear to them that this was one of the most beautiful worlds the Gods had made. They began to do what they had done on all the worlds before Syseria: colonize and assist in the planet's evolution. The Gods intervened at this point.

The Aasimar were warned that if they were to subject Syseria to their experiments, their race would be destroyed. The Aasimar, however, felt that they were the true creators of the universe by this point, seeing as how a handful of their civilizations had already advanced to magical spacefaring, and still others were on their way. In the Aasimar’s own opinion, by then they were Gods.

Some time after the first three races were established (again, the exact timeline is unknown even to me, God of Time), the portals malfunctioned, as is the nature of Chaos. Why and how this happened is unknown, but it caused all portals to explode simultaneously, destroying everything for hundreds of miles around, and spewing Chaos upon all the planets that the network was currently connected with. Thousands of worlds were hit. The effect was devastating on all the worlds it touched; some more than others, but all were essentially hurled into darkness.

Chaos bloodstone is the paradoxical embodiment of Chaos. The drow, duerger, and other underdark dwellers may have originally departed from their surface kin due to intervention from Chaos bloodstone.

After the explosion, The Chaos Wars ensued, and this was simply (and appropriately) entitled The Dark Times. Evil creatures were born from the tiny bits of Chaos sprinkled about the planet, including dragons, goblins, ogres, trolls, as well as other creatures that were hurled forth from the chaos plane, such as elementals, various astral travelers, demons, and other monstrosities that most prefer not knowing about. The time this began was unknown, it ended at 0 P.D.T. (Post Dark Times.)

Although many believe the following part of the story to be testimony to the Gods' causing the portals to explode, I firmly believe that it was only the nature of Chaos that destroyed the portals. The Aasimar assumed they could control Chaos, and, though leaving it bottled up as long as they did is a feat, it could never have remained that way, regardless of the Aasimar’s supremeness.

In addition to the explosions, the Gods were, at this point, fed up with the temerity of the Aasimar. They chose to destroy the two continents on which the portals had once stood with two massive lightning bolts. The continents shattered into smaller islands and slowly drifted apart, eventually settling into where they are now. The force was so massive that it offset Syseria’s rotation, causing it to wobble as it orbits around the sun. The thunderclap caused every being on Syseria to go deaf. All B.D.T. oral tradition was lost entirely, and whatever language may have sounded like before the planet-crack was forgotten. Written communication continued.

Just after the explosions, the Aasimar who resided as Watcher communities decided not to reveal their secrets. They hoped that the portals could be restored one day, and their kind could go on with their work. Until then, they agreed that they must outcast themselves from the normal societies in order to keep their knowledge a secret, since they no longer had anywhere to go. They retired to the forestlands of Syseria, and lived there peacefully, without involving themselves with the matters of the other races.

After the first millennium, a war erupted in the Aasimar community. An Aasimar, fueled by chaos stone, appointed himself overlord and converted many others into beings of chaos. The Aasimar lost their battle, and in their final hour of desperation, cast a powerful cooperative spell to rid the world's knowledge of their deeds forever.

Magic Stones

As the blood, smoke, and dust of The Dark Times began to settle, and The Rebirth began, the wise lion-mage Rathus T'arq of the seven Heros of The Dark Times had decided that retirement was his ultimate desire, and traveled to his tower with the intention of giving up his adventuring days forever and living peacefully there.

However, to his dismay, he found that the Chaos Wars were all but over. Barbarians of the frozen wastes of the south were boiling up to invade, as the people were still recovering from the terrible war. The people of Cirisca called upon him to lead their armies in defense against the invading hordes. As the raiders migrated north, savage fought savage, and the battles that followed were horribly bloody.

These were mere tremors, however, echos of the past war, and the resilience of him and his people encouraged them to subside.

While sure that the threat was gone, Rathus decided to remain in Los Ashton for good measure. He was forced into a political game that he would've been happier without, and became a figurehead at which to point fingers and a pawn for his superiors' gambits. It was during his stay in Los Ashton that the first bloodstone of magic made its way into Rathus T'arq's possession.

Despite what you might think, these stones are more dangerous directly to spellcasters than anyone else. They contain the raw magical energy that magic-users shape, and godly amounts of it. In the event that a foolish mage should attempt to harness this energy, he is invariably blown into nothing but a red mist, or, in a best-case scenario, a horrible and irrevocable wild surge occurs. Rathus' wisdom got the better of his curiosity, and he teleported the stone back to the belly of the world after learning all he could from it.

It was deduced that these are the source of magical energy on Syseria, and confirmed later when a power-mad warlord by the name of Luciust took them to Tarsis, a world with no magical energy, for a time, during which there was enough magical energy for those near it to use their spells normally (as opposed to drawing from the living core of Tarsis).

Luciust's undoing was the stone, when he found that the untamed energy could not controlled, and he was hurled into the Abyss to live out the rest of his days.

There is not much that can be done directly with the stones, but their existence and purpose is known.

Sun Stones

Syseria's sun was not always the yellow-orange hue it is today. Dwarven myths speak of a time when the life-giving sun was covered by a dark blue shell. It was the Dwarven god Pighye who cracked open the shell, allowing the sun's rays to shine upon the earth.

The shell, however, shattered and was strewn about deep space. The larger pieces took on their own self-appointed tasks, forming the shell around the sphere, acting as asteroids, even forming into small planets.

The smaller pieces fell onto the planets, mostly causing a massive, uncontrolled growth of vegetation, wildlife, and even evolution. Sun stones give life, provide heat, and provide light. They are likely to vaporize any being attempting to get close.

Void Stones

Void stones give us gravity, black holes, and tension. They bring cohesion & tension to the universe. They are the glue of the prime material plane. Void stones are typically black holes, and cannot be approached. If even one is present upon a planet, that planet will be crushed. Not even light can escape the pull of a void stone.

The existence of Void makes it possible for a galaxy to exist, for a system of planets or sub-stars to orbit a sun, and for beings to exist upon a planet without being flung away by the planet's movement.

Volution Stones

Millions of years ago, these artifacts were placed on certain planets by an unknown entity, along with another placed on an orbiting moon. The stones of Volution sought out certain forms of life─primates, for example─and encouraged them telepathically to engage in certain activities. Things like tying a small piece of string. Picking up a stone and throwing it to hit a target. Making strange and alien sounds with their mouths.

As epochs pass, these species may evolve to spacefaring capabilities. As such, they are likely to find the stone on the moon nearby which then sets off a beacon, directing them to the next. Additionally, this alerts the Aasimar of when a species has achieved spacefaring.

These sentient artifacts were scattered throughout the universe by the Aasimar during their Alljourney. Volution stones push forth sentience and evolution. They catalyze change and advancement. They are found on planets, moons, and in deep space. Direct contact often results in the absorption of the foolish adventurer’s consciousness. She or he will “live on” in the stone, but will cease to be what they were in their corporeal form.

Volution stones can also generate stars. Moreover, Volution stones push the universe forward, making it possible for stars to form, and to die. They make it possible for all manner of beast and man to walk and evolve on various planets. They are a catalyst, an energy that drives all things to move and change.

Volution stones have the apparently unique ability among bloodstones to spontaneously replicate themselves. Or some say, bilocate or multilocate. The distinction is perhaps moot.

Also has an aspect of Entropy, sometimes referred to as Entropy stones.

A Chronicle of Ages

Detailed herein is a timeline of Syserian history.

The Syseria of Days Long Gone

Syseria is created. Before time had measurement, there was a void, a nothingness that enveloped the prime material plane. Xi took it upon himself to create something from the nothingness. It forged world after world, creating planets, stars, suns, and other more fell creations to spin through the void.

As The Father of Gods continued its process of world creation and turning voids into lush solar systems, there had already began intense rivalries between its children. They collected followers from their worlds and used them as pawns against their opponents’ pawns, often resulting in great wars lasting for decades, centuries, millenia.

This process was repeated a billion times even after it was painfully obvious to all participants that it was an endless, cyclic stalemate. It was at this point that the Father stepped in and ended this sequence. It first created a paragon of worlds, which was nurtured to the most potential inhabitability which could possibly be attained. It spun the fabric of life and energy into stones, and put it at the core of the planet. The three major gods, Terrakus, representing good, Thal, representing neutrality, and Exodus, representing evil, were then forced into a pact with each other, the other gods, and Xi himself, never to meddle directly with Syseria’s affairs, and Syseria was born.

C.-30,000 through C.-20,000

A race called Aasimar are born. The how and the why of this event is known only to Xi himself. They are different than their descendants, the elves.

They were proficient with spacefaring and colonized worlds in their Alljourney throughout the material plane. With their colossal psionic energies they erected portals as big as planets and gathered fleets to complete their divine task. Their devices and vessels were powered by thought alone. Meanwhile, Syseria remained undiscovered.

Ages pass this way, and in this time Aasimar create the races of Dwarves, Humans, Goblins, and True Dragons. Massive portals are built in space, too big to exist on land.

C.-20,000 through C.-10,000

Syseria is discovered. The gods intervene. If the Aasimar subject Syseria to their experiments, their race will be destroyed. The Aasimar colonize this planet as they did all others, against the will of the gods.

C.-10,000 through C.-5,000

The Aasimar’ child races have achieved spacefaring in some parts of the universe. Aasimar machines are now believed to be indestructible to the rigors of space travel.

C.-5,000 through C.-1,000

Aasimar continue their mission of colonization. Meanwhile they have come to believe that they are now gods, and that true gods are obsolete.

C. -1,000 to C.-100

Aasimar summon the gods freely to do their bidding. They have lost all regard for their gods’ designs, and now seek to mold the universe in their own image.

C.-100 to the beginning of The Dark Times

Again the gods intervene. They tell the Aasimar to leave Syseria, stop what they are doing, and return to the upper planes to be judged. They refuse, and in return for the gods relatively hospitable offer, they begin destroying gods.

Their portals touched places beyond the universe, in a place that we now call the Astral Plane resided pure Paradox entwined with the fabric of nonexistance. This incomprehensible place was a necessary waypoint for the Aasimar travel schemes for reasons unknown.

At the end of this age, all these portals exploded, spewing this substance upon every world they touched.

The Dark Times

Although the timeline before The Dark Times is somewhat well-known, and the timeline after is basic elementary school history, this period chooses to remain shrouded in shadow. Its length is unknown, as time was not measured for the duration of this period. The year that it officially ended is 0 PDT (post-dark times.)

After the explosion, The Chaos Wars ensued, and this was simply (and appropriately) entitled The Dark Times. New evil creatures were born in massive numbers from the tiny bits of Chaos sprinkled about the planet, including orcs, ogres, trolls, as well as other creatures that were hurled forth from the chaos plane, such as elementals, various astral travelers, demons, and other monstrosities that most prefer not knowing about.

Chaos bloodstones rained from the sky, and on top of that the gods shattered the continents with a planetary thunderbolt (see the account of the Chaos Stones).

Huge swaths of history and knowledge were discarded and forgotten. Civilizations fell like leaves to the ground. Billions died. War and destruction reigned. The sky was dark, the gods were gone, the Aasimar had been reduced to squabbling tribes, and despair set in.

At some point, a war erupted in the Aasimar community. An Aasimar, fueled by chaos stone, appointed himself overlord and converted many other Aasimar into beings of chaos. The good Aasimar that remained lost their battle, and in their final hour of desperation, cast a powerful cooperative spell to rid the world’s knowledge of the Aasimar’ deeds forever.

The true gods could then be rediscovered, and their light would turn things around for Syseria. Magic as we know it today emerged from the darkness, and psionics were abolished with seething hatred and loathing. The gods granted Syseria serenity from the Aasimar, but no longer from the gods themselves. They now communed freely with the people of Syseria, and granted them magic. Xi still did not allow them to come to Syseria in person, though, but myths and legends tell of deific scandals and double-crossing. They say that at some point during The Dark Times, the gods were forced to put their essences into living containers on the face of Syseria. Many gods were destroyed during this period, and according to legend, some are actually still present.

The Syseria of Today

100 P.D.T. - 1,000 P.D.T.

This era was categorized as a rebirth and rebuild, while most of Syseria rebounded from the devastation of The Dark Times. There were basic needs to be met, but also the people started to uncover remnants of the old world. What written history and information could be found is highly valuable and sought after by academia and the authorities.

Portals linking 13 of Syseria’s major metropoli are found to still be functional or fixable. Once it was determined how to operate them, they could be used to travel to any portal city on the globe. A consortium was formed to manage and protect the portals: The Consortium of Portal Overseers.

Several Spaceports and Airports are found with some ships still functional. Syserians returns to skyfaring and spacefaring. A network of transoceanic monorails is rebuilt to once again serve as cross-continental transportation for Syserians.

Sea travel, as always, remains en vogue.

1,000 P.D.T. - Modern Day

Invention, engineering, alchemy, and other forms of science are discovered and are beginning to be explored. Crystal towers are erected and networked through the belly of the very world allowing magical communication anywhere on the planet. Magic is infused into ocean-going vessels, allowing them to travel to the opposite side of the world in less than 1 month, and into wildspace.

Current Age and The Future

I do not believe that the inhabitants of Syseria, with all their sophistication and learnedness, possess the foresight to know what the future of Syseria will bring. While many point to a new age of reason and spiritual enlightenment, others whisper of a possible return of the Dark Times. There will be no respite for the inhabitants, as their quest must never end. They are the greatest that mortal flesh can be, and their world is the most hospitable possible on the mortal plane. Their test will be for their own souls, and of the souls of all the prime material plane.