Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Twinwolf]

Empire name pending, planet name provisional

Section A: Planet Kotuc

The world of Kotuc is an old world, orbitting closer to it's sun than most would consider habitable. And yet, rather than a blasted husk of a planet, it's one thriving with life and greenery, with just the same range of biomes and climates as one would expect in any habitable-zone world. Observers at first have a multitude of theories about how this is the case, but it honestly boils down to something quite simple. There is so much magical energy in the planet's atmosphere that it provides it a stronger protection against the sun's lethal rays than mere oxygen, nitrogen, methane, and assorted other gases would do on their own.

Kotuc is one of 10 worlds orbitting it's sun (debatably 11, if one counts the huge moon of one of it's gas giants), and holds a variety of flora and fauna, the vast majority of which make no sense as a living being. The sorts of fantastical creatures of myth and legend on other worlds are common. It's split into four continents representing each cardinal direction.

Section B: Pre-Empire

In some ways, the path of Kotuc's main empire mirrors that of other spacefairing civilizations. In other ways... it doesn't. The empire actually consists of at least a dozen distinct sapient species - one of which and the most numerous of which is one of the hundreds of unique varieties of human - in... not harmony, but some level of mutual coexistence and intermingling. For millenia, it progressed along a traditional path, although one augmented by actual magic. For much of it's history, magocrocies - those nations ruled by the magically gifted - were the most common form of civilization. And for millenia more, it was in a sort of technological stasis at what one would consider "medieval" level. As in other societies, the advent of a way to mass produce writing was instrumental in industrialization.

Most civilizations then move on to the steam engine. Kotuc, on the other hand, had the Spell Repeater and Elemental Container. Suddenly, you didn't need to be a mage to use magic - if you had a properly configured Spell Repeater, that spell could be cast without any magical effort on your part. Elemental Containers could be used to easily gather spirits and elementals for use as a source of heat, cold, mana, whatever else you could get a spirit to generate. Kotuc rapidly industrialized, congregating in cities built on leyline convergences where the magic was most easily gathered and elementals and spirits were naturally drawn to.

Containment of earth spirits raised crop yields, which raised populations and freed them to work in the factories where spell repeaters powered by spirits started pumping out products, at first the essentials, and later luxuries. Civilization developed on a parallel course to more mechanized societies, a world powered by spirits and magic rather than coal and electricity. It's not as if science was totally unknown; the scientific method was quite useful for alchemists, and some physical laws were observed by philosophers. But when you live in a world where the laws of physics as more vague guidelines and suggestions, it's hard to put much stock in it.

Section C: Contact

The Kotuc system did not have only one habitable planet. It had two. Kotuc had governments that were aware of this, due to long-range scrying, but no way to communicate with those other beings. Magical messages simply wouldn't cross the void with adequate efficiency. Fortunately, soon they wouldn't have to cross much distance, as their neighbor discovered a means of rapid inter-planetary (not interstellar, though) travel. Unfortunately, their neighboring world was under the heel of a martial dictatorship looking to conquer.

The war was brief but bloody - and led to rapid advancement of the people of Kotuc. Their neighboring world lacked the high magic of Kotuc, but had made high technology to compensate. During the war, as Kotuc’s people united in face of their invader, artificers and alchemists were baffled by what the technology of the invaders could do. But just as much, they were inspired. Using destroyed and damaged enemy ships as a base, their practical knowledge of tech progressed leaps and bounds. Using a mixture of technology and magic, they soon achieved interplanetary spaceflight, and fought off and defeated their neighbor.

While their practical understanding of tech had increased… they still didn’t get the principals and fundamentals on which it worked. They knew what worked, but not why, which has led to a rather unique level of tech where the holes in their understanding of natural laws are patched with generous helpings of magic and spirit binding. “Science” is a by-word for the same sort of mysticism and mystery that drapes magic in other worlds, and there is an almost cultish reverence for it in some corners of society. Kotuc tech looks like a bizzare, ramshackle fusion of old, well understood mechanics of magic and the ritualistic application of lubricant and chanting of voice commands.

[ConscriptFive]

The Hypergeometric Reich

"...but what was The Tetrahedron?"

"It was the beginning, and the end, of the ultimate era of mankind."

   -Undated conversation between an Apprentice and Master Scribe.
   
Long had man dreamed of true space exploration.  To explore strange new worlds.  To seek out new life and new civilizations.  To boldly go where no man had gone before!

But despite generations of our best efforts, extraterrestrial life eluded us.  Sure, the eggheads get all fired-up about some microbe or something, but that wasn't what we've dreamed of this whole time, was it?  In the words of Carl Sagan, it's an awful waste of space to have a nearly infinite galaxy and only one true intelligence.  Mathematically, what are the odds of us truly being 'alone?'

Then we hit the "Eureka Claim."  Freelance uranium prospectors discovered the subterranean ruins of an extraterrestrial intelligence.  Amidst spectacular architecture, one artifact proved consequential, "The Tetrahedron."  The Tetrahedron was a two-story metallic tetrahedron fully covered in inscriptions entirely alien to mankind.  The surveyors were able to confirm both the ruins and The Tetrahedron itself were made from depleted uranium, whose mild radioactivity and half-life of 4468 million years defied meaningful dating techniques.

Mere profit-seeking geologists, they overcame their first instincts of excavating the whole place for uranium, and contracted more ivory tower intellectual-types to re-invent the long forgotten science of archeology.  Surely, there'd be money in that.  Think of the tourism they could've rake in.  This could've been bigger than the Pyramids and the Colosseum of Rome combined!

Linguists and anthropologists transcribed and analyzed the inscriptions for months on end, but got nowhere.  It was a mathematician, Reinhardt Silvermann, who first claimed he "understood" The Tetrahedron.  Though he, just like everyone else who followed in his footsteps, was completely incapable of explaining it.  Attempts to explain the inscriptions on The Tetrahedron come across as pained and highly metaphorical gibberish: vaguely poetic, but nonsensical as a whole.

Of course, the remarkable thing about the Eureka Claim wasn't The Tetrahedron itself, but rather what those that "understood" it could do.  Using unremarkable materials, they could effortlessly craft physics defying phenomenon.  Childish sci-fi tropes of "light sabers" and "force fields" became reality.  Naturally, "the Understood" were entirely incapable of explaining how they did this.  Earnest attempts to explain these phenomenon devolve into the usual poetic gibberish The Understood became known for.

Well, that and the terminal insanity.

At the age of 47, Reinhardt Silvermann gouged out his left eye with an Exacto knife shortly before carving his own neck open.  Perhaps the secrets of The Tetrahedron are too much for our ape brains to handle?  The cost of understanding begins as a mild neurosis, that develops over the years into more serious psychosis.  Acute seizures and general brain damage also follow.  The typical Understood exhibits schizoid behavior within ten years of first understanding, and dies prematurely from neurological trauma within twenty.  Much like Silvermann, gruesome suicide is also anecdotally common among The Understood.

But would-be Understood still flocked to the Eureka Claim, apparently finding the allure of The Tetrahedron being worth the cost of inevitable self-destruction.  But the true tragedy was that these secrets remained isolated from the rest of mankind.  Around Reinhardt Silvermann, an informal "Cult of the Scribe" developed.  More of a tongue-in-cheek joke than a true cult, primarily German-speaking scholars documented Silvermann's every word, move, and invention.  If mankind couldn't safely understand the creations of The Understood, they could at least mimic them.

To their suprise and horror, mimicry worked.

Scribes documented what they named "Hypergeometry."  A strange and deliberately poorly explained "science," hypergeometric texts alternate between rote procedures and confusing attempts to explain concepts without crossing the fatal threshold of understanding.  Hypergeometric engineers function like a script-kiddies, wreaking having with "software" they dare not code themselves.

But power seeks power, and paradise was soon lost.

Duly impressed by the wonders of Hypergeometry, the local Duke had the Eureka Claim seized.  By the Duke's personal authority, The Tetrahedron and the Understood would be duly militarized under the state.

Well, that was the plan until it all blew up in their faces.  Literally.

Surviving scribe records from this period suggest that despite his hypergeometric innovations, Silvermann was something of a pacifist at heart.  Even after his death, first generation Understood reverantly tried to follow his example.  While for years it was believes the Duke's forces deployed a low yield nuclear weapon upon the Eureka Claim.  Turns out late-stage Understood had a third trademark: they can "go fissile."

The Tetrahedron, Eureka Claim, and the first generation Understood annihilated, it was thought the alien secrets were forever lost.  Sure Hypergeometric engineers would continue their mimcry of previous inventions, but source of innovation was atomized.

But where there was a will, there was a way.  A computer hacker stole the initial archived transcriptions of The Tetrahedron, and published all of it online.  Would-be Understood desperately studied these leaked texts.  A new generation of Understood announced themselves one-by-one on social media.  No longer were the Understood huddled underground at Eureka Claim.  They were across the whole sector.

A sudden Renaissance flourished in the next few years.  Hypergeometry became a populist tool, and every backwater town had an Understood and Scribe selling homebrew practical magitech out of a storefront.  Forcefield plows were a particularly hot commodity in those days.

Then the psychosis began.

Most societies can hand a few eccentrics.  Eccentrics that turn into nuclear weapons are a whole 'nother can of worms.  Excluding Eureka Claim, there have been at least three documented cases of an Understood going fissile.  While relatively rare, three downtown settlements getting nuclear bombed was enough for a full government intervention and societal overhaul.

The "Public Safety Laws" demanded strict control of all Hypergeometric literature, especially transcriptions of The Tetrahedron.  Understood were to be individually isolated under government supervision, and subject to immediate execution should they pose a threat.  Naturally, "Undeclared Understoods" would pose an even greater danger.  Profiles of potential Undeclared Understood were developed, focusing on certain ethnic, religious, counter-cultural, and sexual characteristics.  The Department of Public Safety was tasked with regularly surveilling these potential time bombs.  Furthermore, "decadent language" was also banned, to discourage the romantization of Understood speech.  (All attempts at poetry must be registered and approved by a local Public Safety Officer.)  Accordingly, arrests and executions were warranted at a Public Safety Officer's sole discretion.

While the state was publicly terrified of rampant Hypergeometry, internally they couldn't resist its allure.  With all the Understood rounded up, only Government Scribes could document new innovations.  In the face of execution, Understood were coerced to advance military applications, sometimes literally at gunpoint.  True wonder weapons emerged and eventually the state had to drop the facade.  The Hypergeometric Reich was born.

Today, the Reich has a near monopoly on Hypergeometric technology in its borders.  With all Understood and Scribes formally nationalized, Hypergeometric research if fully militarized for the benefit of the state.  Crony-run state industries sell limited quantities of Hypergeometric civilian goods; the official policy of the Reich is "military first."  Politically connected folk play with the latest toys, while the commoner must toil with mundane tools.  It's enough to make a boy moisture farmer want to run off and join the military to catch a break.

Maybe that's the point.

Meanwhile, potential Undeclared Understoods face constant institutional and societal discrimination.  Public Safety keeps constant tabs on minorities and non-conformists.  Surely employers wouldn't want that kind of aggravation in their work place.  Why even take that kind of chance?  Of course, government employees get latitude outside of the Public Safety Laws.  It's enough to make a student activist want to run off and sign up as a Reich Scribe so they could breathe easy.

Maybe that's the point.

[cronos5010]

"Man errs, till he has ceased to strive."
-snip
Magic System

Empire name pending, planet name provisional

Section A: Planet Kotuc

The world of Kotuc is an old world, orbitting closer to it's sun than most would consider habitable. And yet, rather than a blasted husk of a planet, it's one thriving with life and greenery, with just the same range of biomes and climates as one would expect in any habitable-zone world. Observers at first have a multitude of theories about how this is the case, but it honestly boils down to something quite simple. There is so much magical energy in the planet's atmosphere that it provides it a stronger protection against the sun's lethal rays than mere oxygen, nitrogen, methane, and assorted other gases would do on their own.

Kotuc is one of 10 worlds orbitting it's sun (debatably 11, if one counts the huge moon of one of it's gas giants), and holds a variety of flora and fauna, the vast majority of which make no sense as a living being. The sorts of fantastical creatures of myth and legend on other worlds are common. It's split into four continents representing each cardinal direction.

Section B: Pre-Empire

In some ways, the path of Kotuc's main empire mirrors that of other spacefairing civilizations. In other ways... it doesn't. The empire actually consists of at least a dozen distinct sapient species - one of which and the most numerous of which is one of the hundreds of unique varieties of human - in... not harmony, but some level of mutual coexistence and intermingling. For millenia, it progressed along a traditional path, although one augmented by actual magic. For much of it's history, magocrocies - those nations ruled by the magically gifted - were the most common form of civilization. And for millenia more, it was in a sort of technological stasis at what one would consider "medieval" level. As in other societies, the advent of a way to mass produce writing was instrumental in industrialization.

Most civilizations then move on to the steam engine. Kotuc, on the other hand, had the Spell Repeater and Elemental Container. Suddenly, you didn't need to be a mage to use magic - if you had a properly configured Spell Repeater, that spell could be cast without any magical effort on your part. Elemental Containers could be used to easily gather spirits and elementals for use as a source of heat, cold, mana, whatever else you could get a spirit to generate. Kotuc rapidly industrialized, congregating in cities built on leyline convergences where the magic was most easily gathered and elementals and spirits were naturally drawn to.

Containment of earth spirits raised crop yields, which raised populations and freed them to work in the factories where spell repeaters powered by spirits started pumping out products, at first the essentials, and later luxuries. Civilization developed on a parallel course to more mechanized societies, a world powered by spirits and magic rather than coal and electricity. It's not as if science was totally unknown; the scientific method was quite useful for alchemists, and some physical laws were observed by philosophers. But when you live in a world where the laws of physics as more vague guidelines and suggestions, it's hard to put much stock in it.

Section C: Contact

The Kotuc system did not have only one habitable planet. It had two. Kotuc had governments that were aware of this, due to long-range scrying, but no way to communicate with those other beings. Magical messages simply wouldn't cross the void with adequate efficiency. Fortunately, soon they wouldn't have to cross much distance, as their neighbor discovered a means of rapid inter-planetary (not interstellar, though) travel. Unfortunately, their neighboring world was under the heel of a martial dictatorship looking to conquer.

The war was brief but bloody - and led to rapid advancement of the people of Kotuc. Their neighboring world lacked the high magic of Kotuc, but had made high technology to compensate. During the war, as Kotuc’s people united in face of their invader, artificers and alchemists were baffled by what the technology of the invaders could do. But just as much, they were inspired. Using destroyed and damaged enemy ships as a base, their practical knowledge of tech progressed leaps and bounds. Using a mixture of technology and magic, they soon achieved interplanetary spaceflight, and fought off and defeated their neighbor.

While their practical understanding of tech had increased… they still didn’t get the principals and fundamentals on which it worked. They knew what worked, but not why, which has led to a rather unique level of tech where the holes in their understanding of natural laws are patched with generous helpings of magic and spirit binding. “Science” is a by-word for the same sort of mysticism and mystery that drapes magic in other worlds, and there is an almost cultish reverence for it in some corners of society. Kotuc tech looks like a bizzare, ramshackle fusion of old, well understood mechanics of magic and the ritualistic application of lubricant and chanting of voice commands.

+1 for Twinwolf's proposal due to essentially being magitech XCOM, but if it's possible I'd like to offer up a +1 for Empiricist's proposal as the magic system , and Twin's as the history and actual faction though..

[dgr11897]

The Administration Bureau
Originally the incredibly well funded and equipped police force for a large nation on a well developed planet (A near Ecumenopolis in fact) when that nation's government fell in a rather large magical disaster which destroyed the capital of the country and a good chunk of the cities closest to it, the Administration Bureau took control of the country. With military high command and large amounts of war material having been destroyed in the same incident as the rest of the government, the Administration Bureau was the only one with the resources, know-how, and organization to put the pieces of the nation back together. During the chaos following the fall of the old government every two bit archmage and tyrant with a bit of power under their control divided up the nation, forming countless bandit kingdoms and dictatorships. However, soon the Bureau's elite SEAT, Special Equipment And Tactics, teams and the normal enforcement officers worked together to depose newly formed dictatorships and tyrannical governments, notably including every single group which disagreed with how the Bureau ran things, and bring law to areas where it had become absent in the chaos. Every day brought new cities and states into the fold, each an independent nation, sharing their law enforcement division with the rest. Then, once they had retaken the entirety of the old nation's territory, they set their eyes outwards, towards the lawless failed states to their borders, overturning them with the same tactics and weaponry which let them take control of their nation post collapse.
Now, most of the planet is administered by the Bureau, with their Titans and trained combat mages a comforting sight present in every city, keeping the peace. It is a time of unprecedented unity, with every major political figure in every member state agreeing with the decisions of the Bureau, even as disagreeing anarchists are brought in or killed with great speed. With the planet now under proper law, the Bureau looks outwards, at the lawless worlds and systems around them, and prepares to bring their version of "Peace", "Order", and "Proper Law" To the lawless regions of space all around them.

[Strider03]

tl;dr Precursors, a white dwarf star, life on a gas giant moon, and a desire for living room. Certain details are left vague to be filled in or changed as we go depending on what's interesting. The magic and tech system is one of these things, as I don't think I'll have a better idea than what others have come up with.

Clarus
In a small chaotic sector of the galaxy, there existed a small unobtrusive star system, with a small dim sun, and a few unremarkable gas giants, orbitted by a few unimpressive moons. In its heyday, the system would have been a sight to behold. A giant rocky inner planet full of natural beauty. A vast swarm of solar energy collectors orbitting a massive, brilliant sun. Smaller inner planet companions closer to the luminous sun. Brilliantly reflective gas giants swarmed with moons, and a civilization encompassing it all.

On the largest rocky planet, the largest concentration of people resided, a result of the abundant natural resources and beauty. In masterful manipulation of science they easily dismissed the crushing gravity and pressure that accompanied this world. On the smaller inner planets, their abilities shielded them completely from the intense temperatures that came with proximity to the sun. On the gas giant moons, they easily compensated for the immense tidal strains, and kept their orbits stable.

But this would not last. Time marches on, and time would not be kind to the sun of the Clarus system. Massive, but not gargantuan, by the time the system was settled, it was on it's last legs. Within a few thousand years of settlement, the sun would enter it's red giant phase, and stay that way for 300,000 years. No one really knows why the system was settled when it was so clear how transient such a place would be. The time came, and the sun expanded, engulfing some of the inner planets, while the largest rocky planet, further from the sun, was consigned to being baked and blasted away enraged expansion, its remnant spreading over the outer reaches of the system. What happened to those on the inner planets, is uncertain. Perhaps they believed that all their resources could save them and their planet, perhaps they simply packed up and left for far off worlds.

The civilizations in orbit of the gas giants were not free from danger, but it was significantly lessened. The ground beneath their feet would not be destroyed, but the temperatures would rise to a rather uncomfortable state. Some people left, others took shelter in tombs of metal, insulated from the surface heat. Somehow or other, or perhaps inevitably, in those 300,000 years, the history of this previous civilization was lost. Those who left for other worlds did not pass their history down more than a few thousand years, and those who remained on the moons slowly died off.

And so we find ourselves here today. The Clarus sun has mellowed in it's age, shrinking back to a brilliant white orb of leftover heat.

The inner planets are long gone, their ores and minerals scattered through the system. The gas giants no longer reflect as they used to, their new source of light but a speck compared to what it once was. And on the third moon of the first gas giant, there is human life. Whether this is an ignorant remnant of those who once lived here in brighter days, or new arrivals, crash landed and surviving, or even a new settlement that has wiped the history of it's early days and claimed to have been here all along, is unknown. Time passes, and progress builds, and eventually, or once again, these people reach a space-faring state, built on the unorthodox blending of the inexplicable technological remnants, and entirely explicable magic.



This civilization began with magic, and only magic. A strange magic, the details of which are not discussed here. With time, small villages merged into states vying for dominance. With magic as it was, there was little impetus for the use of natural resources not available easily on the surface. Structures could all be made from wood with ease, transportation could be done over land, over sea, and by air. There was no reason to delve below the surface, initially. But with expanding populations, came the need for more resources than the trees and magic could provide, and more space. They could build up, or they could build down. If the skies were for transportation, then building down seemed far more enticing. And so, they began to dig. And soon, they began to find things. Temples, seemingly, buried and sealed, perfectly keeping out the water and air. The walls were broken by magic, and these civilizations began to explore. Or shaped knobs and protrusions when pressed, made light. Sealed magic spells? Others made loud whirring sounds, while still others seemed to do nothing at all. And one day, someone pressed a very significant button. Giant doors sealed for millenia creaked open, and thrusters flared to life, launching a vessel skyward. Arcing up and around, until it landed in a nearby kingdom, sparking war. At this point, it became clear to all on the moon that what was beneath the ground was not merely temples or ancient dwellings, but some unknown magic as capable or moreso than their own. Wars were fought, and slowly the inhabitants began to combine these gifts from the past with their magic.

 Pockets of lost tech are discovered, and become the subjects of conflict. New religions appear, sacriligious to the old. Worship of those who came before conflicts with worship of the dying god of the sun whom some hope to bring back. And sometimes, conflict occurs because people are assholes.

Eventually though, incursions by their neighbors in the Jumble sector demonstrated the necessity of a unified front. The moon's lands were consolidated into an empire. Tensions are high of course, as religious conflicts continue, certain cultures are forced to mix with those they've long hated, and population has reaches limits that a single moon can barely sustain. But it is still an empire, capable of standing its ground and keeping hold of a system in this sector.

Once the homeland has been consolidated, the people of Clarus spread out, visiting distant planets for pleasure and business, or seeing travel brochures. Some were amazed by the smallness and ugliness of their world by comparison. Others see the opportunity to find the means to rescuscitate their dying sun. Some want simply to explore and find sufficient land for themselves. Still others seek relics on other worlds of the technology housed beneath their soil, spurred on by the ancient records found. And thus, a majority is seized by a desire to expand. The worlds around us in the Jumble sector would not be as useful; quite full and undesireable as they were. So, fueled by the as yet inexplicable abundance of natural resources, the seemingly immortal technology of civilizations long past, and a desire for new beautiful worlds to call our own, we set out for the Sommet Sector.

[Empiricist]

Resanctification (Theopolitical Policy)
Oft micharacterized as a religion, Resanctification refers to theopolitical policies the relate to formation of mutually altruistic relationships with Vagrant Gods.

Simply put, Vagrant Gods are Gods who are no longer worshipped, doomed to drift through space stripped of all influence and forgotten by the universe at large. Some were simply obsolete, tools their creators requires no longer, scattered to the celestial winds. Some inflicted this fate upon themselves, disgusted by what their people had become. More often than not however, it is simply because their civilization went the way civilizations tend to go - toward oblivion.

They drift between the stars, beings of once-immense power consigned to eternal loneliness.

Many would make their way to Kotuc. It is was only natural after all, for at there their heart they too were beings of magic and the ambient magic of the world offered them some degree of warmth in a universe that now seemed oh so cold.

It is rare for so many to gather, space is vast and time vaster still, but Kotuc had gathered them, yet they could not speak. Or rather they could speak but their voices could not be heard their existences so faint, their presence so weak, they could not communicate even with each other. Yet the gathering provided them some solace still, some sense of kinship, bittersweet though it may be to know they were not alone in their plight.

It was by chance that contact was made, at the Voblein Institute of Necrodynamics. The institute had recently constructed a vast subterranean scrying facility designed to study the microcurrrents found in the Veil and the researchers were scrambling to isolate the cause of an anomaly in their readings. That cause was a Vagrant God.

It would take years for their voice to be heard, years for the institute to modify the scrying arraying into something capable of more than simply detection, but eventually that day came, and at least it could speak.

It told them stories. Stories of the past, stories of its people, stories of people, what few stories it had. It was once a conqueror, a god of war, magnitude was in its very nature. It was something that operated at scale on the scale of wars and nations, not on soldiers and civilians, they were simply too small, too fleeting for it to put faces to the numbers. Oh how it wished it did. The past centuries had been lonely, oh so lonely. It spoke of its downfall, of conquest's folly and the death of an empire. It spoke what came after, of isolation, of the profound emptiness. For the first time in its long life it asked for nothing in return, it spoke simply to be understood.

One researcher asked about its worship. How did was it worshipped? It was so long ago. It replied with what it could remember. A week passes. The reseaecher comes back with more questions, more specific questions. Was the ritual done this way or that? Was the incantation neccesary or simply part of the ceremony. It was unaccustomed to such pedantry, but it humored him all the same, it was nice, having someone take an interest.

Power. For the first time in a long time, it felt power. Power pouring in from the old channels, the flimsiest of dredges of power, but power all the same. The researcher had offered it his piety, offered it power, poured in through the rituals of old. They were not quite what they once were, same parts had been easier to replace than reconstruct, others had been found to be products of political convenience rather than anything strictly functional and unceremoniously scrapped as a result.

Why? Why offer it piety? Why offer it power? They could've simply made a new god, a god tailored to their people not some lingering shadow of the past. It didn't want to fight anymore, it couldn't fight anymore, how could it? It couldn't even save its own people.

Perhaps not replied the researcher, but he didn't need it to fight, he didn't need it to do anything. He just felt that it was an awful shame it couldn't touch the world around it, couldn't feel the breeze against its body, couldn't speak in its own voice. He could not offer it much power, he could not offer it the existence it once held, but the world was beautiful he said, and it would be a shame if it couldn't enjoy it for itself.

Today that researcher's compassion lives on in the policies of Resanctification.

The populace of Kotuc offers piety to a diverse pantheon of Vagrant Gods. They use rituals to endow them with power and hold festivals in their honor, giving comfort to these once-wayward wanderers. And many in return serve the people once more, be it out of a sense of duty, a need to make up for past failures, or simply just to feel appreciated again.

The matters relating to Vagrant Gods are managed by the Department of Theurgical Affairs.

In Kotucian society, the service offered by the Vagrant Gods functions as an alternative and thus counterweight to the power of the Elemental Unions, preventing them from ever accruing too much power.

It is unsurprising then given the strategic and economic importance of Resanctification that citizen participation is mandatory, with each citizen paying an annual tithe of time and participation in theurgical affairs.

Tithes like regular taxes are overseen by the Internal Revenue Service, and tithe evasion is punishable with fines.

Kotuc will not last forever. Resanctification will not last forever. But space is vast and time vaster still, what happens once can happen again, and as eternity stretches out before them, the orphaned gods look toward the future with newfound hope.

The Pan-Continental Ghostframe (Computational System)
Consciousness may be rooted in the soul, but cognition is a far more distributed affair. The body influences the activity of the soul, and the soul the activity of the soul. The sum of these, is cognition, a cycle born of material and immaterial processes.

Death breaks this cycle. It destroys the material processes leaving only the immaterial behind. This has profound impacts on human cognitive cycle as it becomes unable to sustain its typical state and collapses, with the typical end state being best described as a kind of "resynchronization mode" not unlike those that occur during near-death experiences and ketamine induced "k-holes".

Thus while it is by no means difficult to commune with the dead, the average ghost is in fact supremely unhelpful due to existing in a perpetual state of dissociation and delirium.

This dissociated state is not the only possible end state, in some cases the circumstances of death permit the ghost's cognitive cycle to wind down into a more coherent metastable state above the dissociative "ground state".

While these ghosts are substantially more useful, their cognitive states are still locked into atypicality, the classical example of a "vengeful spirit" having a cognitive pattern akin to someone in the midst of a drug-fueled rage.

To actually restablize a ghost's cognitive cycle, to restore them to a more typical state of consciousness, a cognitive anchor, in essence, an artifical brain. By interfacing with the anchor, a ghost would be able to kickstart the material component of the cognition cycle, and resume regular cognitive processes.

It goes without saying that the creation of such anchors is a prohibitively expensive endeavor, so few existing that their use was restricted to the ghosts of geniuses and emperors, and even then, they would have to share.

That was, until the invasion came.

Scavenging through the wreckage of downed ships the Kotucians discovered peculiar devices. At first the artificers thought they were shrines to invaders' gods, or perhaps housing for their elementals. But soon enough they would realize, these devices much like all else they did, was completely devoid of magic. That these devices while unable to act, could think or at least compute, and they could do it impossibly well. The Kotucians had just discovered the quantum processor.

The Kotucians reasoned then, that if these machines could support computation, perhaps they could support cognition too. That if they truly could think without being conscious then perhaps they too could interface with ghosts, perhaps they too could act as anchors. Thus born were the Ghost Engines.

They were superior. Superior in every single way to the engines of old. They were faster, more efficient, able to run simply on electricity and nothing else, able to run by themselves without requiring artificer or elemental intervention. They were however, scarce.

There were only so many q-procs, only so many scavenged
from the vanquished invaders, and producing more was a laborious, frustrating, and above all else slow affair. Initially, the Kotucians had thought that scrying would allow their designs to be replicated, as had been done with many other an invention of the invaders.

They would be wrong, oh so very wrong. These devices, these bedeviling machines, they could not be scryed. To fully comprehend their existence, scrying had to be performed on active q-procs, but there was something, some bizarre intrinsic property of their active state that seemed to utterly despise scrying. Scrying q-procs seemed to induce errors in them, something especially problematic given scries would be neccesary to produce anything usable. Worse still the results were seemingly random, the Kotucians could not even reconstruct the function of q-procs based on their failure state because there was no one failure state. It was as if randomness and uncertainty were fundamental their very operation.

The Kotucians would havr no choice but to simply manufacture them from scratch, a truly daunting task. Even to this day the q-procs are truly expensive commodities owing to the slowing pace of their production and the or high demand for a variety of applications.

Faced with this economic reality, the necromancers would have squeeze every ounce of efficiency they could from their Ghost Engines.

They look to the other fields for inspiration, and that was when they learned of the Mainframe.

A mainframe is a single q-proc networked to an array of client interfaces that submit commands for its execution. Devised during the war, it was envisioned as a way to realize the full potential the captured q-procs, for such was their power that they could answer the calls of many.

But this would be their downfall, for the invaders knew how to bring ruin to their own creations. As the war neared its end they realized their own machines had been turned against them and in response they released a weapon unlike any other. Invisible, intangible, immaterial, the phantasmal weapon seemed to strike the hearts of the q-procs, causing them to malfunction and produce catastrophic errors.

The Kotucians would later learn it was a "cyberweapon" a weapon designed to infiltrate and hijack computational engines, and the highly connected nature of the mainframes had made them the perfect targets.

It was at the time an intractable problem. How do you protect against against a weapon born of principles you cannot comprehend, leveled at a target you cannot even understand?

You can only move the target out of reach. And the Kotucians did precisely that. They severed the connections and withdrew the mainframes. The q-procs would now serve only on the backlines, isolated and and out of reach from their creators.

That potent force multiplier, that ability to network and distribute the attention of the q-procs, it had become a liability.

The mainframe was dead.

But is it not the duty of the necromancers to sheperherd the dead?

And so born was the Ghostframe, a mainframe with a Ghost Engine at its heart. It is not impervious to cyberattacks, but it is hardened for when anchoring a soul a q-proc is influenced by the soul in turn in the cognition cycle, and this cycle will outcompete any cyberweapon metabolizing and neutralizing it. To a soul inside a Ghost Engine, a cyberattack is no different to being drugged.

Multiple ghosts would share a Ghostframe's resources, operating out of client interfaces.

The first Ghostframes were "pure" Ghostframes, every shred of their q-proc's resources dedicated to maintaining the cognition of the departed, but as other fields recognized their value Kotuc soon witnessed the rise of "hybrid" Ghostframes where ghosts are only one of many kinds of users, but an important kind as they double as an inbuilt security mechanism.

In time, these individual system would be networked so that they could share information and processing power. What they became would be known as the Pan-Continental Ghostframe.

The PCG's computational power is traded and distributed to internationally on the Necromantic Exchange (NecrEx). At last anyone could speak to the ghosts of their loved ones, for the right price.

A good proportion of the PCG's processing power is reserved specifically for necromancy given that it maintains the security of the entire network. While the NecrEx offers these dedicated "shares" (derived from "timeshare") at a discounted price (buyers needing to only compete with other necromantic interests rather than just about any other application like regular shares) the prices are still rather high due to sheer demand.

The amount of available purchasable NecrEx shares tend to fluctuate as the government can mandate their allocation to high priority tasks, typically those of planetary interest.

Naturally this has lead to speculation with investors seeking to predict when shortages happen so they may buy shares in advance and resell them at higher value later on. This industry has been subject to increasing amounts of regulation in recent years however due to concerns that speculation is inflating the price of shares and putting them out of the reach of the common people.

In response to expense of shares, some ghosts have even pooled together their resources, agreeing to synchronize synchronize their active times, experiencing the world again as brief "snapshots" taken between months of not years of dormancy.

[Strider03]

Eris

Quietly in the heart of the jumble sector, orbitting a lonely but altogether ordinary K-class star, there exists a planet in the habitable zone. It is filled with abundant natural beauty, lush forests, diverse fauna, and a civilization. Though presently it is but a single civilization, united, it was not always so. In the distant past, two settlements arrived on the planet, almost simultaneously. In a fit of unusual graciousness, both sides agreed to settle on opposite sides of the planet, and take only the land on those sides for themselves.

The peaceful arrangement of course, did not last and as soon as the settlements had expanded to the point where they touched around the planet, fighting began. The wars were long and tragic, pitting the magical prowess of the Willards against the technological prowess of the Mukuuins. The enemies were well matched, neither side gaining any lead, and for years this stalemate continued, until, the two parties realized something. They had a common enemy. Who was it that ruined their food supplies constantly? Who was it that spread disease among their camps weakening both sides? Who was it that mocked them and lowered their morale on the eve of battle, exacerbating the demoralizing effects of hot sticky weather?

Bugs, that's who. Suddenly, everything was in perspective. They were all human, and fighting over what, little bits of border land? Neither had expected to conquer the entirety of the other side or subjugate anyone. These wars were just because of little petty grievances, each side wishing to save face and not be made a fool of. But who made far greater fools of them both, both at borders and in the heartland? BUGS! And so, all of a sudden, the war was over.  Had the bugs been paying attention, they might have noticed the sudden dissolution of borders, the increased travel, and the sudden mingling of peoples who'd never seemed to mingle before. It was downright astonishing even to both the sides suddenly mingling. After years of war, suddenly the two sides realized they weren't so different after all. It helped that neither side had committed too many atrocities.

And so, the former enemies bean to plot. Magic and technology combined, into weapons of great power. Magical viruses transmitted between insects, gigantic electric zappers that could take down swarms instantly, scrying systems for locating hidden pockets, and combat ready drones sent into those hidden pockets of remaining bugs, and much more. First, they began with the mosquitoes. An easily agreed upon foe. And in a swift strike, without mercy, they wiped them out. Next were the caracids, venomous little things native to the planet that liked to munch on plaster. These two were wiped out without a second thought. It was only then that they began to consider ecological consequences. Other insects, while they might be pests, were not such nuisances that they could not be eradicated without consideration. Thinking this, they began to fear for the consequences of their hasty actions against the more irritating and overwhelming insects. Now that ecological niches were absent, mathematical models and fortune tellers alike predicted ecological catastrophe. And so a new plan was devised. Magimechanical insects, to fill the emptied niche. They would do all that these bugs had done, save that which interfered with the humans. Specially enchanted ore would be manufactured, making these insects edible to those that they provided food for. Miniaturized computer circuits capable of linking a bug swarm to let it orient for optimal food distribution for predators. Disintegrating psuedo-mouths to let the insects consume and build homes in trees and the earth as they would normally. The number of technologies and magical innovations that were needed for this plan were immense. But once the inhabitants of Eris had fixed their ecological catastrophe, instead of quitting, they realized, with this tech they could eliminate all insects. This they did, developing even more terrifying abilities in creating this falsified nature.

Now the two sides live in peace in this paradise for humans. Magimechanical insect swarms have courses plotted to maintain the diverse ecosystem, and some are given to children as pets, acting almost as though they are alive, but only with humans interest in mind.

Eventually though, these people spread off world, and heard that, off in the galaxy, insects still infested world upon world. Insects that could be brought via space travel, and might contaminate their homeworld. They were not so self absorbed as to think that their varieties of insects were all that existed. Out there, there were worlds outside of Eris, that might house or evolve insects far beyond those that they had eliminated. This threat could not be ignored, and so, they determined that they must gain the power and prestige to head out to other worlds, and eliminate their insect populations, by force if necessary. Clearly not all civilizations would want this, perhaps for ethical reasons, perhaps due to not wanting Eris forcing its ways of life on others. But still. The threat of contamination by a far more terrifying insect population could not be ignored. They would need to gain the influence necessary to at the very least, begin to monitor other worlds, and the population to, at the very least, begin to infiltrate other worlds with ideas of eliminating insects.

And so the inhabitants of Eris have headed to the Sommet sector to make their first step in the rise to prominence. There they will gain influence utilizing Titans armed with weaponized versions of their magimechanical insect swarms, with abilities developed to repair their ecological catastrophe.

[Man of Paper]

I'm going to make one argument in favor of Planeswalkers (name can be adjusted if desired), and then see whether or not someone else can sway me to vote otherwise.

Our pilots will have eldritch gods and nightmare fuel enslaved to them through the Void Cores. A demon enslaved to a dude or lady that manipulates a mech like it's own body tied to the will of the master pilot is pretty sweet.
We can explain away the difficulty of creating anything we make with our magic due to the fact that the rifts are on the homeworld. Less work for the GM!
Think about all the other pissed off elementals bound to shit required to make things work in their society. It's funny, in a coat-everything-in-lead-paint kind of way. Which leads us to...
An entire slice of our society would be monster hunters and wealth chasers, which means that's a cool thing we can choose to have our bois a part of. Lucrative-as-fuck business practices.
While I refer to the things as elementals, we don't need to restrict ourselves to classic elements. What about a Glass Elemental? Or a Salt Elemental? Some industrious rogue told me those can net quite the profit.
Anyways
Completely green energy.
A critical hit on an engine and catastrophic failure will release the C'tan kept inside, much cooler than a reactor exploding.
History has a combination of both magic and tech that results in an evolution of magitech that requires both. Definitely the only option that does this.
We can change the name for $10 or free if you don't fall for that.


I thought there was a box done already but I didn't see it, so oops if I cut someone's vote.

Danvers Planeswalkers: (1) MoP

[Empiricist]

Right so, my thoughts.

• We're playing a mercs/conquistadors/space CIA a long way from home, far from the industrial heartlands of our homeworlds. We're repairing and retrofitting out Titans with literal scrap.
• What this means is for the magical system itself, we don't need crazy power sources or mindblowing weapons so much as we need screw drivers and duct tape. We need something lightweight and bootstrappable, something that is not necessarily the crux of our designs but rather how they came to be, how we can construct towering warmachines from the remnants of their fallen kin.
• Thematically I feel like the most appropriate system would be one that describes more the processes and principles rather than the results and end products. Something that take whatever scrap we find as an input, and spit out whatever designs we envision as the output.
• One of the things I especially like about necromancy (as in the use of ghosts and spirits) is that it can be used as a context-sensitive system. Different cultures and different civilizations have different approaches to death and the afterlife, along with y'know different ways to horribly die. The same principles that could bind a vengeful spirit to a Titan could just as easily call forth the space-maddened ghosts of ancient astronauts, or neovikings convinced that they are now in Valhalla.
• Also, things that are more flexible in output make for more interesting catastrophes. The problem with nuclear reactors is that they only really meltdown. A whole host of different things can go wrong with necromancy depending on how you use it. Anything from haunting yourself with angry ghosts to dredging up a kraken from the depths of the afterlife. Same goes for things like Essence of Magnitude, the failure is dependent entirely on what you douse with it.

I am thus casting my vote for Twinwolf's Kotuc lore, alloyed with my Resanctification module.

In terms of histories, I find myself most drawn to Kotuc and Clarus as both have a history of assimilating the tech of other civilizations, a useful trait for the conditions we'll be facing in this game. I know Hachet is leaning towards Kotuc based off the "Wizard XCOM" angle so I figure I'd throw my lot in with the more popular of the pair for now.

Resanctification I wish to be included just because it's a decent amount of lore and history that opens up new interesting avenues for writing without being particularly committal in terms of magic or technology. Vagrant Gods exist, do our mercs actually use them? Who the fuck knows. That's for us to decide. Maybe they've got weaponized shrines that call down divine wrath, empowering and redefining their gods through iconoclasty. Maybe they recruit locally, call on the Vagrant Gods of the Sommet Sector, offering piety in exchange for favors, forgotten gods simply another kind of detritus they gather. Or maybe they don't use theurgy at all; the use of gods is not unlike the use of elementals so there's no reason they would have to do so.

In exchange we get to explore how our personnel adhere to a "religion" with more things in common to a defense contract and welfare policy, what piety even means when it's just another tax. We get to use the viewpoints of fallen gods and the people who adopted them. We get to have not only ramshackle Titans but a ramshackle "religion" with rituals taken from like five different sources and held together with duct-tape and WD-40. And of course, we get to have some wizened husk of a god gaze out upon all the chaos and the bloodshed and go "ah fuck here we go again". (Also it helps us buy Chev's vote )

Necromancy, I really do want to have access to it, but I don't need it to be any specific system, so long as it's not ruled out I'm fine with whatever so I ain't tying my vote to it.

Danvers Planeswalkers: (1) MoP
Kotuc + Resanctification: (1) Empricist

[cronos5010]

Danvers Planeswalkers: (1) MoP
Kotuc + Resanctification: (2) Empricist, Cronos5010

It's Wizard XCOM with an adopt a God section, what's not to love?.

[Strider03]

Personally, I prefer my planetary history module, simply because I like the solar system I designed more, and the reason for having ancient tech. Having a civilization trying to survive around a dim dying star with the potential to harvest it for electron degenerate matter and mopping up the remnants of an old civ that have been blasted throughout the system appeals more to me than a planet that has an abundance of magic and a neighbor. I'd also wonder why the two planets in Twin's lore diverged so substantially in their paths, and why only the magic based one won. These feel weird to me, but I recognize them as opportunities to add more to our history. And so it comes down to the fact that my main issue with twin's lore is on a cosmological level, and that's not really what this voting is about. It's about civilization and history, and I'm okay with Twins.

So while it certainly doesn't appeal to me the best, I am willing to run with it. Resanctification and Ghostframe appeal to me of course. I want to see stuff like the saboteur rifle and such as well. So given that this isn't really about deciding on a full magic system, I don't have any ideas of my own, and these things appeal to me, thus my vote is cast.

Danvers Planeswalkers: (1) MoP
Kotuc + Resanctification: (3) Empricist, Cronos5010, Strider03

[AzyWng]

Danvers Planeswalkers: (1) MoP
Kotuc + Resanctification: (4) Empricist, Cronos5010, Strider03, Wrench In The Plan

[TricMagic]

Danvers Planeswalkers: (1) MoP
Kotuc + Resanctification: (5) Empricist, Cronos5010, Strider03, Wrench In The Plan, TricMagic

[Strider03]

Just a little thing I felt like writing up since the idea hit me today.


Phaeod


The world of Phaeod is orphaned. No suns light up the planet from beyond, only the stars and the faint glow of the spiral arms from the galaxy beyond. And yet the planet is not pitched into darkness. Strands of floating ether orbs light up the planet along an exhaustive web. The lights brighten and dim much like a solar cycle of approximately 33 hours. The strands of light float but a few meters above the ground in most locations. In some regions though, they arc over valleys thousands of meters up, in other locations, they dip deep under the surface. Those who live here now do not know the origin of these lights. But modern surveyors and geologists speculate that this luminary array aligns very closely with the geological landscape that may have been present some 50,000-90,000 years ago. A wide range, and not long on geological time, for these changes to occur. It is extremely puzzling. However, there is significant evidence of calamitous changes, a short glaciation period, leyline reorientation, and substantial correlated volcanic activity and more occurring at the fore end of this time period. Given the massive changes that occurred in this time, it is unknown whether the lights match the landscape of 55,000 years ago, or 70 thousand.

The magic on this planet is strong, and some of which is siphoned up through this light network. Of course, the imperial mages have traced other consumptions of energy, and found many locations where it simply leaks out of the earth, perhaps to fuel some long eroded or destroyed machine. Flow traced deep underground has lead to the discovery of other incomprehensible draws of the magic of the land. Some of these lead to pacifying enchantments on magicless glowing stones, others to the lights of vast tombs and giant rotating fans. Odd uses of magic to be sure, as the methods of lighting and spinning seem odd, relying on strange again magicless metals. With time, the imperial mages and archaeologists have begun to investigate these, and we have begun to understand this natural, magicless magic. It has lead to an era of unprecedented ideas, combining this invisible magic with the more tangible magic. The combination of the two seems even more useful than each on its own.

For ages, the origins of our people have been a mystery. After discovery of a great library, our origin. . . remains unknown. But a great deal of the history of this world has been unfurled. Long ago, then as now, both magic and this science, this "knowing" existed. Small societies tended to choose one over the other, as delving deeply into one built infrastructure to develop it further. We suspect that our modern success with both has occurred only due to the infrastructures and knowledge already in place.

In those ancient times, the power for the two ways of life was consolidated, into competing empires. While they competed in who's methods were better, they lived fairly peacefully. It was always suspected war might break out, but it never really did. Tensions were high, but despite a few close calls, never boiled over. It would have been devastating to all. Occasionally, expositions would demonstrate the achievements of one side to the other, to try to gain support from the population of the other.

Magic had the edge in power and convenience, but lost out in reliability and finesse compared to this "science". Those with magic could fly with far more ease, but occasionally might just vanish from existence. Meanwhile those of science developed their own flight, and while it failed, it was far more often understood what went wrong, at the cost of being more expensive and damaging to the natural world around them.

The unstable peace lasted for quite some time, until the two sides began to leave their planet. Both sides managed it around the same time, but the pace picked up for those of magic, while it stalled for those with science. In time, those on the magic side even broke the speed of light. This was astonishing, apparently, our historians are not fully certain on this point, but it seemed as though that speed was an irrevocable barrier for those on the side of science. They were outraged by this flagrant violation of these rules that seemed inviolable. And thus, tensions increased. The practicioners of magic could not fully explain their travel even amongst themselves, so they could give very little information to these "scientists". One thing lead to another, and soon there were quiet battles going on. Not all out war, but both sides poked and prodded. One side wishing to investigate the toys of the others that they thought were being kept secret, while the other side wished to be left unbothered by these meddlesome fools who couldn't even break the light barrier.

Eventually, the nosey scientists managed to board a ship, and investigate the method of traveling beyond the light barrier. It clearly did not push the ship, it clearly did not make some form of wormhole, and it clearly did not require infinite energy. It required a massive amount, but clearly not infinite—though to be fair energy was not a good measurement for magic, it had long been understood. Thus one side remained as stumped as ever. Tensions simmered, and went down a bit after the scientists returned the stolen ship a few years later. It would take 20 years of analyzing that data before it was revealed what the true method of this FTL was. And those who realized it were outraged. Rather than moving their ship, this magic moved the universe around them. Sort of. Rather it seemed to, unbelievably—though all magic was equally unbelievable—entirely destroy the universe, and within seconds recreate it in a new position. Regardless of the sacriligious abuse of physics and energy and the idea of space as a whole, those on the scientific side were, more than anything, terrified. For magic of course, was not always reliable. First off, were they even the same people after being rebuilt, the philosophers murmured. Over them, the less aloof folks screamed, what if the universe just wasn't rebuilt after one of these trips. Could the magicians guarantee that wouldn't happen? No! The fact that the magicians and philosophers told them that in that event they probably wouldn't care, did not console them in the least.


And thus, all out war began. One side fighting to defend from invasion and occupation and destruction of all that they had accomplished, the other fighting to prevent the coin toss of unknown odds that might doom them to oblivion. Assurances that the magicians would investigate and try to prevent it were of no use. The war was calamitous. Nuclear weapons against continental scale sigils, levitated and detonated mountains against laser point defense systems. The land was scarred and changed, and somewhere along the line of escalation, the forces became unbounded, and the planet itself was launched from its solar system into the void. This effect was beyond the scope of the scientists, and so our imperial mages have deduced that it must have been the magic side that has written these texts. Seemingly they eventually won that war, but at a terrible price. In the darkness between the stars, the planet wandered, and the magicians made light. But slowly some died off, succumbing to the radiation, some left for a world still possessed of a sun,  while others simply grew weary of the desolation they saw about that they could not rebuild.

And so the planet passed into a dark age, though only metaphorically under the glowing strings of light surrounding the planet. In time, it seems that those few humans who remained and survived had bounced back, becoming our ancestors today. We've delved into space on our own, by different methods, been helped along by others along the way. Our reason for spreading? Well some people want a sun to bind to our planets, others want simply to spread out. And still others, want to spread our legacy. Beneath us lies the bedrock of a great civilization, and we are determined to recover it, and do things properly this time.

[Man of Paper]

The Forsaken Peoples Of Raz-Ellah

Raz-Ellahn history is best explained by their faith, The Comprehension of All Beginnings. They see the planet itself as their creator, having been one of what All-Beginnings adherents refer to as a "womb world" capable of forming life. Indeed, in their instance they are absolutely correct in believing the planet's magics are what gave the Raz-Ellahns life. It also gave them their name.

The core of the planet was a living, ancient being, trapped within it's rocky prison for millennia. Unable to escape with it's physical form, it reached out with it's mind and grasped the surface of the shell around it. It felt things, but they were so simple, meaningless, weak. So it guided these first microbes, taught them how to multiply, how to take in the things around it to give itself energy. Most importantly, it taught them struggle. The hostile environment, and countless other forms of life cropping up due to the residual effects of Raz-Ellah's manipulations, proved quite deadly to the Selected forms. It forced them to evolve, and with Raz-Ellah at the wheel.

The Raz-Ellahn people took the optimal shape for dominant life within the universe, as all of Raz-Ellah's ilk knew: loosely symmetrical bipedal "ape" things. Families of these ape-beasts spread out across a large swathe of the planet's primary continent, and before long they formed the first tribes and spoken languages. The Raz-Ellahn stagnated as Raz-Ellah tried to push them towards further optimization, but they were lacking...something.

While most intelligent species developed tools, the Raz-Ellahn developed understanding when tribes settled near focal points of Raz-Ellah's residual energies. When the Raz-Ellahn entered these zones of saturated energies, they were bathed in something beyond knowledge. They were granted comprehension on a scale comparable to that of the Elder beings. These Selected Peoples could perceive what laid beyond the veil of their own reality and draw directly from it. At first this was done largely on accident: a hunter firing a stone that strikes true against all odds, or a bush seeming to regrow it's berries overnight after being picked clean. The Selected Peoples became adept at pulling from this "other side", a realm that society had glorified for as long as they knew it existed, and saw no contest when it came to expanding into lands held by those without access to a focal point and, eventually, settling them.

As civilizations rose across the planet, each centered around their own set of focal points, they developed largely without causing lasting damage to their most sacred planet. Empires rose and expanded however, and these magicentric societies began to delve deeply into the studies of their magics, previously considered sacrosanct. The breakthroughs they made were immense, but partial: their magic was not just summoning water, light, or butterflies on a whim. Instead, after meticulous research (and aid from the focal points some of these research facilities were built upon), they came to realize that their magic was more a folding of their own reality onto itself. Something is always happening somewhere, such is the nature of the infinite universe, and the Raz-Ellahn were strong enough of mind to bend reality backwards to make something they want to happen rip from where it was supposed to happen to where they wanted it to happen. Easy enough, right?

This understanding came to separate rival empires the world over, and so while understanding the working of their magics made using it somewhat easier, it did not provide a decisive edge for any one nation. So some looked at the surface deposits of metals and resources they'd exploited and wondered what, exactly was beneath their feet. Mass extraction of new resources, including a large variety of ores and massive pockets of thick black sludge led to an industrial renaissance. A large-scale increase in the production of weapons and armor allowed an empire's entire population to be weaponized, adding potential to tip the balance of power in any number of directions. Oil helped lead to the development of machines, providing a lubricant of unparalleled efficiency for the increasingly complex assemblies constructed of dozens of moving parts, and was eventually used as a fuel source itself. The world surged forward, and the world was engulfed by the smog of war.

As empires crumpled under one another, and occasionally imploded on themselves, there was but one constant: the strength of the magics of the Selected Peoples had begun to wane. Trees were being mowed down, the seas fished, the ground scarred as the Raz-Ellahn dug ever-deeper in search of more and more. They had damaged their holy world, and she had begun to turn her back on them. As the wars cooled off, the new nations sought to heal the scars rampant greed and wrath had wrought. It was during these studies of how best to heal the planet that the Raz-Ellahn discovered their true nature.

They'd been unknowingly tapping into Raz-Ellah's furthest extremities, drawing thick, black blood from it's expansive body. The Raz-Ellahn had long ago outgrown Raz-Ellah's grasp on their psyche, and so it was helpless to stop them as they slowly, to their scale, bled it out. While discovering that everything about their existence was built upon the back of this impossible beast in every sense did cause quite a shake-up, there were two clear issues at hand for Raz-Ellahn society to tackle: their Oil was a finite resource and would need replacement in it's use in all things thaumamechanical, and their magic was fading and some means of preservation would be required.

The first issue proved difficult to find a solution for. While potential replacements were developed over the following decades, a lack of efficiency and widespread availability for most options in most locations proved to be an obstacle. The second, while also difficult, proved to be somewhat easier to solve, and wound up providing a bandage that patched the first until other power options became viable.

Archaeomancers studying Raz-Ellah had discovered new properties to it's Oil. While there were a whole lot of reactions involved with this seemingly special resource, one stood out among the others: Refined Oil could have magic cast upon it, and when an object was lightly coated by it, the object permanently gained magical traits influenced in part by the original spell, the form of the object, and the will of the Enchantersmith. While this meant Oil was still used by the society at-large, it was used remarkably more efficiently, and objects could be made using Oil that could better harness other energies, like that of the sun or the skies.

A number of Raz-Ellahn were rightfully unsettled by the giant-now-rotting-body of some massive ancient being and sought refuge among the stars, and with personal magic at weak enough levels that it could only be useful for imprinting Oil, there was no more reason to stay attached to the Corpse-Planet. After a few probe launches and test flights, there was a successful manned mission to space and back. The moons in the night sky were a tempting target to some, but weren't they just as likely to house some nightmare monster? No, the Raz-Ellahn instead sought to create habitats orbiting and observing these celestial objects. Their ambitions saw space stations constructed first in Raz-Ellah's orbit, then around it's moons, and finally to a number of planets in the system, before they made First (technically Second?) Contact...

[This is where Powder would get to fill shit in to fit into his universe views]