2025-8-28

An auger is spherical, spike-laden sprites created from a magical rite powered with the bones of the freshly deceased.

Often used in dark magics related to soothesaying.

Ugathal, in their inert form, are pink, fleshy creatures made of ropes of muscle and sinew twisted into a vaguely humanoid shape. They can steal the bodies of their victims, extracting the flesh off a corpse and wearing it as disguise.

Austrene is a country in the clouds, defined by jagged peaks and sprawling glaciers. Its pristine slopes and otherworldly beauty attract visitors from across the continent, while its high-altitude observatories attempt to glean knowledge from the slip. Austrene is a land split right down the middle -- cozy alpine touristry on one side and advanced philosophical and technological contemplation on the other.

Affluent tourists from all over Edan make the trek to Austrene for snow sports like skiing and hiking and the natural geothermic springs dotting the mountainside. The native Austrenites have capitalized on this in recent years, building palatial lodges and jacking up prices. Austrene has gained a reputation for being where the rich and powerful come to play, and its government and people have certainly not discouraged that notion from spreading.

Just on the other side of the lift-dotted peaks are the observatories of Belvedere, peering into the endless slip where the firmament is thinnest. Supported by the revolving door of wealthy patrons that visit the country, philosophers and researchers devoted to the Watcher and the Pulse devote themselves to contemplation and study.

Austrene is technically a kingdom, complete with a king, but like most else here, the royal family has become more attraction than power. In practice, the country is led by the Provost of Belvedere and a handful of oligarchs that control most of the resorts (and their land).

The Black and White is a world separate from Færrin but connected to it through the Pharos.

The Sin and Tonic is a bar in Sableclutch. Owned by Illmari Vaino, it's the current headquarters of Iconoclasm.

The interior is dingy and dark, and Illmari keeps incense censors burning tobacco hanging from the ceiling during operating ours. The main serving area is a large rectangular room with booths along the walls and a bar in the center. The left exit leads to the workshop and garage, the right exit leads to the stockroom and armory, and the back exit leads to bedrooms and an office.

Unlike many a Fane — its walls sustained by a Heart rather than mere brickwork — the Sin and Tonic makes no pretence of grandeur: the sleeping quarters are tucked at the back on the same level as the bar, the beds hovering somewhere around two-star comfort on a generous night. The twins are the greater draw for those in need, skilled enough to brew healing potions, though they run nothing so formal as a shop — bring your own components, or don't bother asking. A supermarket a few blocks off covers the more mundane resupply.

Sableclutch is a poorer neighborhood at the southernmost point of Hallia. Hugging the south bank of the Fousan River, Sableclutch is dominated by the dockworkers and warehouse employees that ply their trade on the river. The district is somewhat overlooked by the rest of the capital -- whilst many of the goods that enter into the city start their journey in Sableclutch, the power centers of the Orgs that manage it are found elsewhere.

Sableclutch Scrap is Copperjaw's operation — a dwarven man whose yard sits amid the winding, unenforced streets of the district, where trucks hauling between factories and scrapyards move more or less as they please, and the factory floors they service are worked in no small part by goblinoid labour.

Movement between districts is not a matter of simply walking — the Host's magic enforces the boundaries, and residents who wish to cross them must do so aboard the Horizon, Hallia's public tram system, which threads together the city's neighbourhoods and strata along a single named route. The starward end of that route tells its own quiet story of disappointment: buildings thrown up in anticipation of a boom that never came when the line was first laid, and left to age poorly ever since. Voidward, the calculus runs differently — factories crowd the riverbank and discharge freely into the water, and despite sitting geographically close to the city centre, the district remains largely undeveloped and almost entirely unresidential, as though the city has simply declined to look in that direction. Three separate police organisations operate across Hallia, each posting their own bounties for outstanding warrants — a jurisdictional tangle that says something about how unified the city is not.

The countless worlds across the Astra share little in common -- different gods, different celestial bodies, and different magical phenomena cause any one person's experience to be wholly unique across the vast tapestry of the universe. The solitary thread that ties everyone and everything in the Astra together is magic.

Magic is pervasive in this universe and a fact of life everywhere, save one small planet near the galaxy's core. Until recently, Færrin was alone. No magic diffused the world, no gods walked the planet, and no stars lit its sky. It was, in a word, mundane.

For hundreds of thousands of years, the people of Færrin lived believing they were alone in the universe. As it turns out, life with the certainty that there's nothing out there is not much different than life with the certainty that there is. The Færrish people lived, died, built civilizations, and let them crumble in much the same way as anyone else anywhere else. Life happened, unfettered.

The world of Færrin is the setting for this campaign.

What do you get when a spy, a scholar, and a sliver of divine will walk into a bar? The lead-in to a bad joke, indeed, but also the great enclave of Belvedere.

Belvedere is one of the great old Orgs, founded soon after the Dark Ages ended and Aurelia brought the Gods' graces to Færrin. The Watcher gave the first Provost a mandate to chronicle the planet as it was, is, and will be. The first Provost journeyed to the peaks of the highest mountains on the planet, such that his view of the Watcher's sky would be unimpeded and Færrin's ground would be clear. There, in Austrene, he founded the first chancery of Belvedere, a public forum for studying the natural world and recording any newfound knowledge.

What Have You Become?

No mortal-built structure is permanent, and Belvedere is no exception. Thanks to outside pressures, what began as a simple fact-recording outfit quickly ballooned into so much more. While the first Provost and his like were content to sequester themselves away from the rest of the world, the promise of powerful secrets was too much of a lure for other Orgs.

Belvedere was beset by those who would crack it open and harvest any power they might find within. To survive, it changed. First came political meddling -- members of the Org who would learn people instead of things. After all, the people of Færrin are just as crucial to its history as natural events. Socialites and spies from Belvedere would enter high society and fight proxy wars, turning their enemies against each other and spreading discontent.

Second came the Hearts, slivers of sentient divine energy gifted by the Outer Gods. As Belvedere expanded, so too did its data availability. Before long, the quantity of information far outstripped their ability to process it. The Hearts had no such issues and could easily connect seemingly disparate data points. Quickly, the Hearts became coordinators and leaders within the Org, and in the modern day, many report to a Heart alongside (or instead of) another person.

Now, a member of Belvedere has a few paths to take. They could join the ranks of the academics, studying natural phenomena. They could become archivists, recording history's ebb and flow. They could be aristocrats, moving through polite society like a fish through water. Finally, they could be arcanists, working closely with the Hearts and their divine machinery.

Few places in Austrene concentrate Fanes and Hearts as densely as Belvedere — the Hearts folded into the city's hierarchy as an additional layer rather than an afterthought, which lends the place an unusual spiritual texture. That the city doubles as a school, with children receiving a proper education alongside whatever else Belvedere demands of them, only deepens the sense that power here is being quietly cultivated from the ground up.

With the rapid technological advancement in Færrin these past few centuries, one can almost forget the underlying magic backbone of the continent. Electricity may be commonplace now, but just 40 years ago, if one needed to see at night, they burned whale oil or summoned a light spirit. Long-distance communication happened by familiar, not by radio signal, and a "refrigerator" was a box with a thermal stabilizer enchantment.

As these new advancements made creature comforts cheaper, much of the old guard found itself obsolete. No one would pay an arm and a leg for a pair of sending stones when you could buy walkie-talkies for pennies on the dollar in your local general store (not to mention phones, which weren't bound to a single receiver!)

This rapid change in the status quo may have toppled many former giants, but some Orgs knew how to capitalize on the volatility. Enter Concordia. Some breakthroughs in what would be called the "assembly line" and a hard pivot from scrolls to dishwashers, freezers, and air conditioners meant that when the wave of the future hit Calaria, it had Concordia's name on it.

Their secret? Just use their magic prowess earlier in the production chain! Concordia employs skilled mages of all creeds to design and build their assembly lines. Steel that twists itself into shape! Self-assembling motors! And why stop at household appliances when they already have the workforce? They make watches, televisions, and construction machinery, too! If you can buy something, Concordia probably makes it.

Where Concordia distinguishes itself is in the shop floor — a consumer-goods giant in the mould of the great home-product conglomerates, it turns its hand to appliances and domestic wares, and polices its branding with unusual rigour; any Fane it maintains across multiple Hearts is kept to a uniform aesthetic, so that a Concordia storefront in one district is near-indistinguishable from one found streets away in another.

Dura Oil-Drinker is a mid-40s orcish woman, with dark green skin. She has two tusks on her bottom jaw, but one has been cut off and sanded to a stump. She has curly black hair, and wears mechanics overalls and dark welding goggles. She has a small raiment of the Host.

Dura is Iconoclasm's resident gearhead. She maintains the company car, handles contacts with outside organizations, and manages the group ledger. She was the first to join Iconoclasm back when Illmari founded it.

Known across the district as a mechanic of some repute, Dura Oil-Drinker keeps the kind of company that gets things running again.

Gin Soaked Rag, or Ginny for short, appears as a 6-foot-tall dishrag wearing a three-piece suit. The arms of the suit float in the air and end in gloves with mobility, despite the fact that the dishrag only occupies the center of the suit. His face is formed by the dishrag scrunching up, and when he moves some liquid appears to bead at the edges.

Ginny is the Heart that maintains the Sin and Tonic fane. He's friends with Illmari and the rest of Iconoclasm, and is considered by most to be part of the team, despite his inability to leave his position behind the bar.

The Gin Soaked Rag is, in truth, Ginny — the Heart of the Sin and Tonic, manifesting as a suit vest and dress pants with a twisted dish rag where a head ought to be, wringing and craning itself toward whoever has just walked in. Ginny works the bar and can turn a hand to cooking, though those with a preference for human food are better served waiting on Illmari.

Illmari is a late-60s half-elf male, with black, slicked back hair and scars on his face. He has a raiment of the Host.

Illmari is the current proprietor of the Sin and Tonic and the founder of the mercenary group Iconoclasm. He was one of the first to capitalize on hearing the Voidsong, collecting like-minded people to investigate its source and meaning.

The founder of Iconoclasm, Illmari Vaino is better known around Sin and Tonic as a cook — a tension between those two identities that those who know him tend not to press on.

You weren't the only one who heard the Voidsong in your dreams. Many like you seek to understand the song and why they were selected to listen to it. The most well-known group working to delve the song's secrets is a mercenary group, Iconoclasm.

Before the Voidsong, Iconoclasm was a small-time freelance group operating out of Hallia. When the dreams started, its founder Ilmari Vaino was among the first to hear the song. Soon after, other group members heard the song until, by chance, Iconoclasm had the highest concentration of listeners on the continent. This snowballed as listeners from other Orgs joined, hoping to get answers. Now, Orgs from all over have donated staffing and funding to Iconoclasm as a show of goodwill to the unknown and as a way to prevent others from getting an advantage.

You're a recently joined member of Iconoclasm, either loaned by another Org or joined independently.

Their base of operations is the Sin and Tonic, with a company car available to members who need it.

Prime Meridian holds the lofty title of being the only Org to perform a coup -- and a bloodless one to boot. PM started as a small transportation company back when a horse-pulled tram was the height of public transport. Forster Cain, its founder, used PM to build the first rail system in a deal with Calaria's then-king. One contract became many, and Prime Meridian was soon an infrastructure giant; it was impossible to walk on a road or take a train in Calaria that wasn't built and maintained by Prime Meridian.

By the time the Calarian royals had realized they had outsourced their entire logistic network it was too late. In a joint announcement with the Iridescent Church, Cain declared the dissolution of royal rule. The king of Calaria found out at the same time as everyone else. Seeing that he had lost the Church's support and could not escape, the king stepped down.

In the old aristocracy's place, Cain and the Church founded the Council that now rules Calaria. Now, years after Cain's death, the Council remains in power and Prime Meridian still build the roads and operates the trains that connect most of Færrin.

The tram itself is operated by Prime Meridian, though the wealthy residential pocket around Prime (Zero) station sits conspicuously beyond its reach — residents there are assumed, by whoever made that decision, to have no need of public transport.

Operating under the corporate banner of Embercall Industries, Pyrelight keeps its commercial interests at arm's length from its factional ones — at least in appearance.

Tywelwyn is a 6'11" deerfolk, with dappled brown fur and tall, branching antlers. His muscles are far larger than could be achieved without magical or chemical intervention, and his skin is hot enough that his sweat sizzles as it's produced.

He is the founder and leader of the Roundhat Gang, a protection racket in Sableclutch. He was rumored to have gone crazy, hearing voices, but it appears that he's struck a deal with someone in Pyrelight. Formerly unable to wield magic, he now pilots a simulacrum to work on his behalf.

The Roundhat Gang is a protection racket in Sableclutch. Its run by Tywelwyn Leatherhide out of The Crowded Flea. Recently, it appears to have established some kind of partnership with Pyrelight.

Under Tywelwyn Leatherhide, the Roundhat Gang operates with whatever authority its leader's reputation can command.

The RunGunners toe the line between upstanding armored transport and hooligans with too-fast cars and too-itchy trigger fingers. If you need something (or someone) to get somewhere in one piece, you hire a RunGunner convoy. Famously, part of their delivery guarantee is a live scry of their transport, with automatic attempted tagging of anyone they engage with -- so their clients can know who tried to steal from them.

The RunGunners are based out of the Termean Veinlands in Fenrith, and their custom vehicles handle the soft, dry sand as easily as paved roads. Automotive engineers, mechanics, and armed muscle call the RunGunner corporate town Throttlehold home.

Among the most celebrated guns-for-hire in the known world, the RunGunners have staked their reputation on a peculiar proof of ambition: a city held in the heart of the desert, viable only because the whole of it functions as one enormous Fane — there being no other means by which such a place could survive. That it is powered by a multitude of Hearts of wildly differing personalities gives the city its unmistakable character, each district lurching into the next with the clashing, mismatched quality of a place that was never quite meant to cohere.

The Scale serves as the Judge's hand as it seeks to impose order and balance across Færrin. The seat of the Scale's power is their Stronghold -- a citadel in the Opaline Mountains that sits on a conjunction of leylines.

The Scale operates as an extranational form of governance with stronger guarantees than any nation could provide. The organization is split into the following groups, in order of rarity:

• Pactbrokers oversee contracts between parties, ensuring that both sides hold up their end, no matter what.

• Arbiters track down those who have escaped justice and deliver them their due.

• Overseers stop those seeking to seal the Gods away again, returning the planet to the Dark Ages.

• Timekeepers prevent meddling with the time stream, preventing the creation of paradoxes.

The average person would be most familiar with the Pactbrokers -- in most cities, one can find a member of the Scale who will (for a fee) witness the signing of a contract. Magic imbued in the contract will monitor the signees, and deviating from one's responsibilities will bring the full might of the Scale down on the contract-breaker.

Unlike many organisations that farm such work out to independent contractors, The Scale keeps its bounty hunting strictly in-house — only its own arbiters are empowered to pursue and recover marks.