The Dungeon

If one were to take a look at the ground beneath their feet, they would surely conclude that the foundation of the world is a solid and unyielding thing. An impression that would only grow stronger if they tried to dig deep into the earth and stone, for most of our planet is indeed composed out of hard, solid material.

And yet, this initial impression would be mistaken. Beneath the surface of our planet, there lies a vast network of caves and tunnels that extend into seemingly every corner of the planet. Some places contain denser concentration of the caves and tunnels than others, but no one has ever found a land that was entirely free of them. People call it the Underworld, the Dungeon, the Labyrinth, and countless other names. It connects to the surface world though openings both large and small, and it descends into unfathomable depths below, creating a habitat full of dangers and wonders beneath our feet.

The Dungeon had captivated humanity since the beginning of recorded history. It is the source of magic. It is the birth place of monsters. It contains inconceivable wealth and cosmic secrets. A thousand expeditions had been launched into its depths – to plunder it, pacify it, make sense of it, or simply try and reach its bottom. Many of these had disappeared without a trace, never to be heard from again. Many more had returned with little to show for it. And no one had ever found a bottom. The interest never waned, however, and where there is a will there is a way.

This document is designed to give the reader some basic facts about the topic and dispel common misconceptions about the Dungeon. It is my hope that it will spark interest in the reader about this part of our world, which is so influential in how we live our lives and yet is so often taken for granted.

The Dungeon and Mana:

Probably the most obvious trait of the Dungeon is the relationship it has with ambient mana. The Dungeon is very rich in ambient mana, and the deeper one goes the higher the concentration of ambient mana becomes. This effect doesn’t appear to ever actually stop. No matter how deep one descends, the levels of ambient mana keep growing. It is rumored that if someone goes deep enough, the levels of ambient mana become high enough to passively induce mana poisoning in human beings, regardless of whether they try to draw in ambient mana into themselves or not. Reports relating to such deep expeditions are often highly confidential, however, so confirmation is hard to find.

Ambient mana in the Dungeon is rarely static – instead, it flows from some unreachable place deep underground and gradually rises towards the surface, thinning out as it is absorbed by the walls of the tunnels and the life forms that make their home in them. The bigger and straighter the tunnels, the less mana is lost during its flow towards the surface. This can create localized areas of atypically high ambient mana density, if a large vertical shaft connects a deeper portion of the Dungeon with areas near the surface.

This flow of mana is also usually accompanied by air currents that keep dungeon air from growing too stale and make the entire underworld far more livable than it would otherwise be. Since air is constantly moving upward from the Dungeon depths but never runs out, there is presumably a source of it somewhere in the depths. This source, much like the source of ambient mana itself, has never been found.

The Dungeon is connected to the surface in many places. These kinds of Dungeon openings are very easy to detect, because they invariably raise the ambient mana levels on the surface by their very presence. Even shallow portions of the Dungeon have significantly higher levels of ambient mana than most areas on the surface, so a Dungeon opening constantly spewing plumes of mana-infused air into the area is bound to raise its mana levels. Places where the Dungeon connects to the surface like this are called mana wells.

In fact, it is widely believed by mages that all ambient mana ultimately originates from the Dungeon. The main proof for this is that if one compares the map of known mana wells with a map of ambient mana levels, it immediately becomes obvious they match almost perfectly to one another. In the rare few cases where a high level of ambient mana is not matched by an appropriately-sized mana well in the center of it, there are usually traces of a mana well that collapsed (or was forcibly closed) sometime in the past.

The Dungeon and Magical Creatures:

The Dungeon has plenty of inhabitants. One might think that the number of living beings would be highest near the surface and then gradually grow thinner and smaller as one descended into the depths, but this isn’t the case. Every corner of the Dungeon is teeming with life. It just gets progressively more powerful and alien the deeper one descends into the tunnels below.

All dungeon creatures are magical in some way. Mundane creatures sometimes colonize new mana wells before Dungeon denizens become aware of them, but they are inevitably outcompeted and driven out by magical creatures in time. After all, magical creatures can do everything a mundane creature can, but with additional advantage of magic on top, and the only limitation is that they need a certain level of ambient mana to survive. Since the ambient mana levels in the Dungeon are high, even in very shallow portions of it, they can support very powerful magical creatures that outclass mundane ones in every conceivable way.

The shallowest portions of the Dungeon – those closest to the surface – are often inhabited by magical creatures that are clearly based on mundane animals. This is where one may find things like fire-breathing beetles, hyper-agile bats, spear-like worms, and so on. Some of them may be very unusual animals, however. For instance, land dwelling octopuses that can masquerade as rocks and mushrooms, or a type of flightless bats twisted into a small humanoid form. Although dependent on high levels of ambient mana to survive, most of these creatures can survive on the surface for a brief period of time, and will sometimes raid the surface if they are desperate or driven from their homes by other threats.

Near mana wells, many magical creatures that live on the surface will adopt a hybrid lifestyle, moving freely between the surface and shallower levels of the Dungeon. Large mana wells may also have specialized species that rely on this kind of lifestyle and cannot survive without the presence of both in the area.

Finally, there are creatures that live in different area depending on the stage of their life. Some magical creatures live their initial stages on life on the surface, where there are fewer things to threaten them, but descend into the Dungeon when they grow older and the levels of ambient mana on the surface can no longer support their existence.

The biosphere of the surface layer is not uniform across the world, and in fact greatly varies from place to place. Due to the great number of bottlenecks in the local landscape, as well as other factors that are poorly understood, dungeon denizens are often localized inside their own small areas. Entering a brand new section of the Dungeon is always a dangerous undertaking, because one can never be certain what kind of creatures they would find there.

The shallow, surface layer of the Dungeon is the one more extensively explored and exploited by humanity. Although no part of the Dungeon can be said to be truly safe or totally understood, this level of the Dungeon is considered fairly accessible and even non-magical people feel confident making limited forays into it. Sections of it are routinely pacified and section off from the Dungeon as a whole to serve as storage spaces, dumping grounds, experimental chambers, mining areas, and so on.

There are a number of sapient races making their home in the shallow portions of the Dungeon, though none possess the technical or magical sophistication of humanity. Their relationships with humans are complex, but surprisingly peaceful. Though humans are interested in exploiting the Dungeon, they have no ambition to outright colonize this space and are wary of sending significant forces into subterranean tunnels. As such, unless Dungeon races raid human communities on the surface, most humans would prefer to leave them alone or engage in trade.

Deeper into the Dungeon, in what is known as the middle layer, creatures become more and more removed from the surface, both in terms of appearance and in terms of behavior. They never venture out into the surface unless some major disturbance has occurred, and would not survive there for long even if they are displaced there. Their appearance is difficult to place among standard classifications of life on the surface. Many of them are recognizably bestial in basic structure, but do not correspond to specific known animals. A middle layer denizen can be said to resemble a frog or a crab, but they are also clearly not those things when studied in detail. Vivisections often produce bizarre results, such as a weasel-like creature that entirely lacks a spine, a jellyfish being that contains a bizarrely human-like brain in its cap, or a mass of pink gel covered in eyes.

Middle layer is viewed with great fear and caution by humans, since even experienced mages could easily perish here. Dungeon denizens that make their home here are powerful and poorly studied. Information about specific species is scarce, and what little of it exists in publicly-available libraries is often useless outside of very specific sections of the middle layer. The middle layer, just like the surface one, often has a unique species and variants living in different sections of it. This means that anyone wishing to go there will be faced with a plethora of strange magical abilities that are difficult to plan and prepare for. Only an archmage, armed with a wide selection of spells and mastered magic types, can reliably take on an environment like this and emerge victorious. These people are in short supply, so forays into the middle layer are rare.

Some of the dungeon denizens on the second layer are confirmed to be sapient, but none of them seem to form large organized societies. Most of them are highly territorial and aggressive, and will not respond to human attempts at communication – they are only known to be sapient due to mind magic. The few species that are willing to communicate are difficult to talk to, as their understanding of the world is entirely alien to humans. These creatures have never left their tunnels, don’t live in civilized societies, and often make references to magical perceptions that not even mages can make sense of. They often perceive humans as both weak and stupid, and are not shy about letting them know that. No long-term trade or productive interaction has been accomplished between humanity and middle layer dungeon denizens.

What lies beyond the middle layer is shrouded in mystery. Past a certain point, the monsters become so dangerous that even the best human mages wouldn’t last long against them. Their appearance is utterly alien as well, and they can no longer be described as weird animals but instead assume utterly alien forms that rarely resemble anything familiar. Like literal monsters conjured out of speculative horror stories, these strange entities increasingly challenge one’s common sense as one delves deeper into the depths. There are rumors of beings that can exist in two different places simultaneously, creatures that can trap people inside their own private pocket dimension that they can conjure and dismantle at will, elephantine-sized predators that are totally soundless and invisible regardless of what detection magic one uses, and eel-like parasites that can phase straight through unprotected flesh so they can slowly feed on the person’s insides. Truth is hard to distinguish from fanciful tales when it comes to the Dungeon depths.

Fortunately for humans (and other surface dwellers), magical creatures that dwell in these depths are such massive mana hogs that they wouldn’t be able to survive more than an hour on the surface and would never willingly ascend that high.

Beliefs and Theories:

As stated, the Dungeon and its place in the world is a mystery. Humans have only scratched its surface and can hardly unravel its deepest mysteries at this point in time. The gods rarely gave a definitive answer about what it represents, and many of their explanations conflict with each other. That is not to say that there is a lack of theories and supposed divine wisdom preserved from before the Silence. Most cultures and religions have an explanation about the Dungeon, and many scholars have put forward various theories about the place. Until someone is able to actually reach its greatest depths and return alive, however, it is likely that it will all remain speculative.

As noted earlier in this document, something in the depths of the Dungeon is responsible for producing nearly all ambient mana in the world. Since the only other thing capable of producing mana is souls of living beings, many people believe there is something alive down there. Some people believe the world itself has a soul, which reside in the center of it. Others believe the creator god that fashioned the world sacrificed his own heart to bring life to the otherwise barren soil. One group thinks the gods built the world around the body of a sleeping giant, and that the world is doomed to ruin once he finally wakes up.

In Ikosian mythology, the dungeon is a remnant from the time the world was created, when the gods took the last Primordial Dragon and fashioned her body into the land we live in. The tunnels are dragon veins, and they all converge at the very center of the world. There, bound in divine chains but still very much aware and seething in hatred, lies the still-beating heart of the primordial dragon. This is the Heart of the World, or the Heart of the World Dragon, and is supposedly the source of all the ambient mana gushing upwards from the depths, as well as the source of monsters that stalk the tunnels.

Many people have raised doubts about this story. Unlike ancient Ikosians, we have a pretty good idea about how big our planet is, and it’s big. Very big. The amount of distance the tunnels would have to cover in order to reach the center of the planet is mind-boggling. Furthermore, some of the scientific theories are suggesting that a large portion of our planet’s interior is actually in a molten state – a giant mass of lava upon which the continents float, basically. That would seem incompatible with the idea that there are tunnels crisscrossing the entire planet all the way to the very center of it.

Many people have raised questions about how the Dungeon can even exist in its current state. They claim that natural forces should have collapsed most of the tunnel network by now, citing both scientific models and the observed rate at which human-controlled sections of the Dungeon deteriorate. The simple answer to this is that we don’t know how this works. Magic is the obvious answer, but no mage can identify the actual mechanism by which the Dungeon maintains itself. Sections of the Dungeon do collapse from time to time, but it is clear that the Dungeon is both far more resilient to structural damage than it should be, and that it has some kind of unknown mechanism for creating brand new sections to replace the destroyed ones.

There is a persistent rumor among delvers that there is a gigantic cavern somewhere deep beneath Altazia, forming what is effectively a small underground continent. Such a place has never been found, and it is unclear where the rumor originates from.

Origin of Dungeon Denizens:

There are two main theories in regards to where the monsters that inhabit the Dungeon come from: the hybrid theory and deep origin theory.

The hybrid theory states that dungeon denizens come both from the surface world and the unidentified depths below. The deeper, more alien creatures are said to have no relations to surface creatures. They originate from the bottom of the Dungeon, whatever it is, and have gradually extended their influence upwards. The inhabitants of the shallow and middle layer, however, are clearly just magical animals. They are surface creatures that have colonized the Dungeon and gradually developed magical powers due to long exposure to mana. At certain depths, these two ecologies meet, though the exact point at which this happens is in dispute. The hybrid theory is currently the more popular of the two theories.

The deep origin theory states that all dungeon denizens originate from the depths of the dungeon. The more animal-like creatures in the surface layers of the dungeon are just monsters that learned to mimic the creations of the gods to better infiltrate the surface and lure the unwary into a false sense of security. This was once the more popular of the two theories, but it has fallen in disrepute in recent times, since greater exposure to the surface dungeon denizens has shown that these creatures just aren’t that hateful and duplicitous. They’re most just vicious animals with magical powers. The spread of magic and firearms has also made dungeon denizen raids on the surface a much rarer thing than it was in the past, which makes people a lot less negative about the place.

Dungeon Journeys:

One question that is often asked is whether travel through the Dungeon can be used to circumvent surface obstacles. The answer is yes, but with some caveats.

Surface sections of the Dungeon are often poorly connected to each other. Thus, if one wants to travel large distances through the dungeon, then at the very least they need to descend into the middle layer from time to time. This means that any person or group that wishes to travel through the dungeon must be uncommonly powerful and experienced. Because large sections of the Dungeon are poorly mapped and many dungeon denizens are fond of ambushes, progress is bound to be slow. If speed is desired, traversing large stretches of the Dungeon is a poor choice of action. Finally, although the Dungeon is teeming with life, very few of it is safe to eat by human beings. Dungeon denizens, especially ones from the deeper reaches, have highly magical flesh that has strange, usually negative effects on human that eat it. Thus, you will have to ensure a steady supply of edible food throughout the journey.

Finally, a question of whether it’s possible to travel beneath the ocean to another continent through the Dungeon is sometimes raised. Such a feat would require one to descent into the deep dungeon and stay there for a long time, which is suicide for just about anyone. No one has been reported to have even attempted it, much less succeeded.

Dirge Moths

Dirge moths are fairly large species of moths with distinctive colorations: they are black with white markings that can glow when the moths are agitated. The white markings are said to be rather skeletal in appearance, especially when they glow in the dark. They are highly poisonous and only active at night. Though folk superstitions claim they lay their eggs inside corpses of people who die in the forest, they actually lay their eggs inside rotting trees. They spend most of their life (about 23 years) as larvae, feeding on wood pulp and absorbing ambient magic, spending their chrysalis stage within the safety of their wooden home before emerging en masse one night. Dirge moths do not feed, subsisting solely on the mana reserves they stockpiled as larvae, and live for just one day before dying. Within this one day they mate and find a suitable place to lay their eggs. They possess highly developed soul sense, which they use to track down and judge potential mates. It is also useful for avoiding threats, though dirge moths are too poisonous for most things and rarely attacked.

The most useful part of the dirge moth is the chrysalis, which must be harvested in just the right moment. It is easy to recognize if the harvester picked the right moment for an experienced alchemist, because the contents of a properly harvested chrysalis are a milky white slime as opposed to an orange-tinted chunky contents of a too-soon harvested one, or a black jelly exhibited by a too-late harvested one. The chrysalis can be used for a variety of potions, but is most important as a component for potions that grant soul perception to people.

Although dirge moths are only active for one day every 23 years, they are actually quite numerous in the northern wilderness of Altazia. As such, their chrysalises can he harvested in great numbers when the right time comes. The Triumvirate Church uses this to create soul perception potions on a mass scale, turning many of its priests into soul mages every 23 years. The resulting abundance of soul mages has done a lot for keeping the Triumvirate Church a powerful and influential force in modern times, despite losing their divinely-granted powers in the Silence.

It was the Triumvirate Church who developed and perfected the dirge moth potion. However, the final recipe was so simple and reliable that it eventually leaked outside the Church hierarchy and became wildly employed in necromantic circles. The church is very unhappy about this and has tried for quite a while to hunt down these recipes and destroy them, without much success. These days they have mostly given up on this, as it has become obvious that this is a lost cause – too many people know the recipe now to truly suppress it – but they have still made actual usage of the potion illegal in many countries.

Even before the soul perception potions had been developed and become widespread, dirge moths have always had a heavy association with death and necromancy, likely because of their skeletal markings and highly poisonous nature. They were said to flutter about around dying people, waiting for them to breathe their final breath so they could steal their souls as it leaves the body.

Morlock societies, before their destruction at the hand of Ikosian refugees, considered them sacred in some way. This probably only added to their sinister, deathly reputation among surface inhabitants of pre-Ikosian Altazia.

Adult dirge moths and over-ripe chrysalises can be harvested for their poison, though trade in it is illegal. The larvae have very high mana reserves, but have no known use in alchemy – though many magical creatures consider them an absolute delicacy.

Hunters & Exterminators

Monster Hunters:

Mages who hunt and kill monsters that menace humanity from the wilderness. This is arguably the most important job of mages from the perspective of humanity as a whole, since non-magical humans have a hard time dealing with the tougher monsters out there without magical support. Without mage monster hunters, humanity would be limited to a handful of scattered enclaves, constantly getting picked off by creatures they could not hope to match.

Monster hunters almost never work alone. They move around in groups of 10 or more, both for safety and to make sure they cannot be easily brushed off when the job is done and it’s time to collect payment. Mundane people have a love-hate relationship with them – they need their services, but they often feel they demand too much in exchange. The line between monster hunters and bandits gets pretty thin, sometimes.

Hunter groups do not have to be made exclusively out of mages, and in fact usually aren’t. Especially in modern times, with guns having decisively proved their usefulness, the numbers are often padded with mundane people. In the past these people were clearly second-class members compared to the mages, but the advent of guns have changed this dynamic to be less lopsided. Not every mage is happy with this, but some mages have discarded traditional group dynamics and simply filled the entire group with gun-wielding mercenaries, with only one mage providing magical support.

Traditional hunter groups usually have several specialists working together – at least one mage skilled in projection to deal critical damage to the enemies, at least one diviner to track down their target, and at least one warder to stop any exotic magics from wiping out the group. Hunter groups usually inform themselves very well about the target in order to exploit its weaknesses and block its strengths. Many of them will refuse to go after completely unknown threats, or will require ruinous fees in exchange.

Exterminators:

A subset of monster hunters that deal with weak but numerous enemies that infest buildings, fields and the like. Rodents, birds and insects are the common target for this kind of thing. This is considered a less prestigious, but safer type of profession from the monster hunter. However, safer doesn’t mean safe. It is hardly unknown for exterminators to end up dying while performing their tasks. Unexpectedly getting swarmed by magical rats or hornet swarms can panic even the most experienced mages, and the true size of the infestation is easy to misjudge unless one has a lot of field experience.

Because of the reduced chances of dying, exterminators rarely congregate in large groups. They commonly work in pairs, and some even operate alone if they’re particularly experienced or confident. If a challenging job comes up, they may form into larger congregations, but many exterminators specifically chose their job because it was relatively safe and will refuse to risk their lives for money. If the infestation is very extensive, many exterminators will just advise the employer to scour the whole place clean with fire or write it off as a loss.

Exterminators often dabble in multiple fields of magic, having wide but shallow understanding of each. They usually have some knowledge of projection, divination, warding and mind magic. Mind magic is employed to manipulate their target, which are typically very vulnerable to mind magic and can thus be influenced by it very easily. This use of mind magic is considered completely uncontroversial.

Magic Users of Pre-Ikosian Altazia

Before the Cataclysm and the resulting large-scale migration of Ikosian mages to Altazia, the continent was a complex landscape of warring tribes and isolated city states. Well, the human parts of it, anyway. Altazian humans were far less populous and widespread back then, with many areas off-limits to human settlement. The forests and swamps were larger and darker, the territories of yetis and trolls more extensive and entrenched, and the various native spirits often claimed the choicest bits of land for themselves.

Regardless, although this human civilization was in many ways primitive and did not have the magical sophistication of the Ikosians that conquered them, they had developed several magical traditions of their own. Most of these were not anything special to the Ikosians, who had by this point already absorbed magical traditions of many other tribal groups. However, three traditions would prove to be exceptionally novel and influential, changing Ikosian magical tradition forever after. Specifically, the magical traditions of the shifters, the witches and the morlocks. For now, we will consider the witches and the morlocks in more detail.

Witches:

Altazian magical traditions, just like traditions of many other peoples, were heavily connected to their native religions. Only the priesthood was allowed to wield magic openly, and anyone dabbling in magic was condemned as foolish and a danger to society. This idea was not without merit, since such amateurs often made pacts with less-than-friendly spirits to gain their magic, but people often found themselves in need of a mage outside the existing power structure. Priests were only human, after all, and had their grudges and vendettas just as everyone else. Plus, sometimes one needed the sort of help that the local priest just wouldn’t be willing to provide.

Fortunately for such people, there was an alternative. Since most Altazian cultures were very patriarchal, women generally couldn’t become community priests. However, it was inevitable that some would come into possession of magic, either through simple accident of birth or through a mage father who decided to teach them what he knew for one reason or another. Such women were effectively outside the traditional power structure, since they couldn’t be recruited into the priesthood and trying to get rid of them was often unwise. Nobody wanted to make an enemy out of a mage whose powers they could barely understand, and this was doubly true in places like pre-Ikosian Altazia were magical education was rare and one couldn’t simply call the local mage guild for help if they angered the wrong person. Thus, so long as such ‘witches’ didn’t make too much of a nuisance of themselves, they were allowed to live their lives on the edges of their communities and offer their magical services to those who sought them out.

Of course, such a position was a rather precarious one. Many people who came to visit a witch did so because they needed access to shady or illegal magic, and those that didn’t were often desperate and had trouble paying for their services. Enforcing payment was a problem, since witches had considerable issues taking matters to community judicial systems. The priesthood was rarely entirely happy with the arrangement and did their best to work against them in any way they could. Unsurprisingly, this caused witches to acquire very unpleasant reputations. They found it hard to marry, weren’t welcome in polite company and were the first to be suspected when a supernatural crime occurred anywhere near them.

Shunned, yet armed with potent magic and prideful about that fact, witches began to tackle their problems by turning to each other for help. They befriended other witches around them, sharing their magical insights, caring for one another when sick or otherwise disabled and coming to each other’s defense when threatened by outsiders. In time these gatherings were formalized into what are today known as ‘covens’, and developed their own customs and traditions. These covens often ignored tribal lines, as witches came to think of themselves as witches first and members of their community second. They grew insular and secretive, with an attitude towards normal society that was often antagonistic or even outright predatory.

Of course, the covens only worsened the reputation of witches among normal society… but they also made people leery of targeting them. The covens policed their own members, punishing the worst of the excesses, but any attack on one of their members was met with immediate retaliation by the rest of the coven.

Witches dabbled in all sorts of magics, but they were most infamous for their potion making skills. This appears to be a consequence of their highly antagonistic relationship with the local priesthood, which forced them to figure out an alternative source of magical healing. Thus, witches took the rudimentary herbal remedies that were present in virtually every culture in existence and slowly refined them into downright supernatural cures. The initial versions of the potions were quite underwhelming compared to divine healing, and thus of little interest to outside mages, but they were relatively cheap and thus often used by the poorer segments of society. Eventually, witches developed these rudimentary cures and healing potions into ever more powerful versions and then started branching out into non-medical applications such as mind-affecting drugs (such as the infamous love potions), transformation potions and poisons.

In addition to their increasingly refined potion skills, witches were known to be skilled in soul magic – though not soul magic as most modern Altazians would understand it. Witches rarely went for actual animation of corpses, instead using soul magic for enforcing deals with outsiders through magical geas, forging familiar links and deciphering people’s true attitudes by studying their soul auras.

This common usage of soul magic, and the corresponding proliferation of soul perception, had great influence on the witches and their beliefs. Many a witch has obtained soul perception and then had a child, allowing them to observe the process by which souls are created in developing children. In short, the soul of a child seems to ‘bud off’ from the soul of the mother. At some point (quite a while before the actual birth of the child) this soul bud separates from the mother and becomes the property of the baby alone. Although children clearly do inherit things from the father, to anyone observing the process with soul perception, the soul itself seems to originate from the mother alone.

The Ikosians (and most other groups) believe this only means some parts of the process are invisible to humans, even with soul perception. They cite the fact that children can inherit magical abilities from their father as their chief proof that there is more going on beneath the surface. Witches, on the other hand, placed tremendous importance on the fact that a child’s soul seemingly comes from the mother alone. They believed only female children could truly continue their bloodlines. A person’s ‘soul lineage’ originated solely from their female ancestors, and sons are basically spiritual dead ends.

According to ancient Altazians, many witches had a habit of quietly killing off their male offspring because of this belief. It is hard to know how much of that is true, but it does appear some covens had a habit of doing that – especially during hard times when the witch had trouble supporting all of her children. Most witches had a more nuanced philosophy, however, and found plenty of uses for male children – they were often married off to witches from other covens to forge links and cement alliances, or just raised as loyal helpers and workers for the coven.

After the Silence of the Gods, witches rose considerably in prominence. Without divine healing, their potions became the primary source of magical healing and medical care on the continent, which put them in a position of considerable power. Although the breakdown of social order and traditional power balance that followed in the wake of the Silence claimed the lives of many witches, many more had profited immensely in the aftermath. Thus, in many regards, the century between the Silence of the Gods and the coming of the Cataclysm is considered something of a golden age of the witch covens.

Yet, it was precisely this golden age that created the fractures in the covens that Ikosians would exploit when they came to Altazia. Suddenly finding themselves in this new position of increased demand, many covens struggled to maintain direction and discipline. The leadership of the covens had always been very tradition-bound and based heavily on age. They disdained outside ideas and young witches with more ambition than experience. That had been fine in the past, when young witches needed the support of their covens and had nowhere else to go, but as the world around them started to change more in their favor, they found themselves less willing to tolerate the restrictions their elders placed on them.

When the Ikosians started flooding into the continent, they almost immediately started tempting these young, ambitious witches into their service. Having lost their source of divine healing just like everyone else, they appreciated the alternative that their healing potions represented immensely. Unlike the natives, Ikosian mages had no problems with legitimizing these ‘female mages’, giving them positions of authority, marrying them and even granting them the status of nobility in some cases. Though these ‘defectors’ tended to be young and only possessed the very basics of witch potion making and magic… it was enough. Ikosians took those basics and gradually developed them into what is today known as alchemy, eventually far outstripping the witches in terms of sophistication.

As Ikosians finished their conquests and started re-organizing their territories, they began to crack down on unlicensed mages. This included the witches, of course. Many skirmishes and wars were fought, with witches finding themselves on the losing side more often than not. Faced with a choice between fighting a losing battle or assimilating into Ikosian mage communities while they still could, many covens ended up disbanding or fracturing.

The Ikosians stopped hounding the witches once they had destroyed the bulk of the covens, believing that the remnants would quietly fade away in time. In this they miscalculated somewhat, since some covens survived the witch wars and exist even today. However, these covens have been irrevocably changed by the conflicts, and are vastly different from how they were in the past. Modern witches make considerable use of the Ikosian spellcasting system in their daily lives, and often even take inspiration from alchemy to improve their traditional cauldron-based potion making. They still exist on the margins of society, however, due to lingering prejudices among the populace and their own unwillingness to toe the line in regards to magical regulations. Their insistence on having their daughters inherit their surnames and insistence that the child inherits the soul exclusively from the mother do not help, either, as they are things that clash heavily with the prevalent cultural norms across most of Altazia.

Overall, the legacy of the witches is felt keenly across Altazia. Modern society would be almost unrecognizable without the existence of alchemy, and many of the powerful mage families and even Noble Houses draw their roots from ancient witch lineages.

Morlocks:

Although there are many varieties of humans in the world, few were as distinctive as the culture of subterranean humans that once built underground kingdoms beneath Altazia. The morlocks.

The most noticeable things about the morlocks are their white hair and their vivid blue eyes. Ancient records often describe morlock eyes as literally shining in the dark, but modern morlocks do not exhibit such traits – it is likely these were just cases of magical intimidation on the part of the morlocks in question. They do not have any innate supernatural abilities, but most of them see very well in low-light conditions and have excellent hearing. They also do not appear to suffer any health issues from spending prolonged periods of time in total darkness. Contrary to rumors, the sun does not burn them or hurt their eyes – at least not if they’ve grown up on the surface like most modern morlocks.

As one can figure out from the description, morlocks are a breed of humanity specifically adapted for underground existence. At some unknown point in the past, the ancestors of the morlocks colonized the surface layers of Altazia’s Dungeon, battling the creatures living there for living space and occasionally raiding the surface for things they could not acquire in their underground homes. What exactly compelled their ancestors into making that choice is unknown, and the morlocks’ myths are inconsistent and fractured about that point.

Regardless, the morlocks were surprisingly successful in their underground habitat. At their height, just before the Silence of the Gods, they had the highest level of technology and magical sophistication on the continent. They were extremely feared and hated by the other human groups, however, for they had the habit of raiding them for slaves and tribute. Worse, many of the slaves had ghastly fates waiting for them, for the morlocks excelled in blood magic and used it often… and had religious appreciation for cannibalism. They believed that through eating the flesh of their enemies they could steal their powers and that through eating the flesh of their ancestors they could preserve their wisdom.

It is likely that this widespread use of blood magic and belief in the benefits of cannibalism are linked closely together. After all, one could gain another’s powers through blood magic – and indeed, many of the high ranking morlocks were armed with at least one power they had stolen from someone through the use of such – so it’s not so farfetched to believe one could go even further by taking more than just blood…

The Silence of the Gods hit morlock society very hard. Although most known for their blood magic, the truth is that morlock society depended most heavily on divinely-granted powers, just like most human societies. Without the support of their gods, the morlocks found themselves struggling, and started raiding the surface humans more heavily for slaves and sacrifices. Thus, when the Ikosians came to Altazia, one of the first targets the locals pointed out to them was the morlock underground kingdoms.

The Ikosians didn’t have the numbers or the will to wage an underground war on the scale that would be necessary to thoroughly crush the morlocks. But they didn’t have to. Simply by virtue of stopping their surface raids and destroying their most prominent centers of power, they broke the backs of morlock kingdoms and left them vulnerable to assaults by underground creatures. In the end, the surviving morlocks were forced to abandon their underground holdings and journey to the surface in several waves, where they were forced to surrender to the Ikosian authorities and beg for mercy.

The terms they were offered tended to be harsh. The Ikosians found the morlock beliefs and practices odious and blasphemous, and the natives under them hated them to the core and advocated to have them exterminated outright. Thankfully for them, as much as Ikosian authorities expressed disgust at the very idea of their blood magic, plenty of powerful mages found the idea… intriguing.

In the end, the Ikosians decided to give morlocks a chance. As the various morlock groups streamed out of the Dungeon, they were presented with the same or similar deal – they would be forced to convert en masse to the Ikosian faith and scattered throughout the land to speed up assimilation, but they would be allowed to live. Some of the morlock groups were not willing to suffer this wholesale destruction of their culture and returned to the Dungeon, where they descended into the fathomless depths in search of something. They were never heard from again, and are surely dead now.

Though the Ikosians had hoped to quickly assimilate the morlocks by breaking them up and suppressing their culture, the reality proved to be not that simple. Altazian natives wanted nothing to do with the morlocks, and the morlocks themselves often found themselves turning to crime, alcoholism and the like. Today, they still tend to exist on the periphery of society and suffer heavy discrimination.

Their blood magic is also alive and well. Partially because many of the morlocks still retain some of their ancient magical traditions, and partially because many of the Ikosian mages secretly compiled many of their techniques and kept passing them around, and so blood magic refuses to die out.

And, though it is not said in polite company, it is well known that many of the modern Houses and magical bloodlines would not exist without the blood magic acquired from the morlocks…

Disciplines of Magic

Magic is a thousand-faced beast, capable of producing a seemingly infinite number of different effects, and often the same effect can be produced through several different spellcasting methods. What follows is a basic overview of the types of magic that exist in the Ikosian magical tradition.

Projection: Spells that produce light, sound, heat, physical force, electricity and other forms of energy. A staple of the modern mage due to their extreme utility and ease of use. Mastery of projection is also necessary for advancement in many of the other magical disciplines, since production and manipulation of energies is the foundation which many other spells are based on.

Quite a few mages specialize in this type of magic, and even more have a solid grasp in it despite specializing elsewhere, which makes it easier to find qualified instructors and spellbooks but also makes it harder to earn money in the field.

Negation: Spells that dispel, disrupt or negate other spells. A must-have discipline for every mage, in part because authorities of most nations force mages to attain a certain level of skill in this field if they want to get certified. Mages with absolutely no negation skills cannot terminate their own spells if something goes wrong, cannot ensure proper safety if they try to teach someone magic and in general represent a headache that most authorities would rather not worry about.

With the explosion of mages in modern times, the demand for people capable of dealing with hostile magic and accidents also increased dramatically, which makes negation a relatively popular field of specialization.

Animation: Spells that infuse a portion of the caster’s mind into the target, allowing effects with a measure of autonomy and independence from the caster. Illusions, animated objects, conjured creatures and imperfect copies of the caster all draw heavily from this discipline. Animation spells rely on the caster’s skill and knowledge, and thus cannot perform actions that the caster is not capable of performing. Any time a spell acts on its own towards some goal (such as a magic missile homing in on a target), an element of this is almost certainly used. Animation is typically used on inanimate objects that have no will of their own, but can be used on living beings if the caster is powerful enough or the target doesn’t resist.

Animation is another magical field with many specialists, since it allows people to effectively conjure helpers and improve their productivity in various ways. That said, animation relies heavily on the caster’s base skills to be effective, so most animators also possess one or more mundane skills they work on side-by-side with their animation expertise.

Conjuration: Spells that create ectoplasmic constructs for some purpose. Spells that launch force projectiles, force fields, creation of tangible illusions, instant walls and floating discs are all examples of conjuration. How durable and realistic-looking the ectoplasmic constructs look depends on the skill of the caster. Conjured items and creatures aren’t real and will evaporate into nothing upon destruction, dissolving into a smoke-like form before gradually fading away. Severed parts will likewise evaporate once separated from the core of the conjuration. No one is quite sure what ectoplasm is, and its exact properties are being studied to this very day.

Conjuration is heavily used in combat magic, mostly due to its ability to easily shield against many forms of magic. As a general rule, an ectoplasmic barrier will stop every spell that would be stopped by a brick wall… which is most of them. Force projectiles will also affect targets like a real projectile would have, which is useful when the target is immune to more exotic forms of damage but can still be put down by a brick to the face. Real or ectoplasmic.

That said, conjuration has its peaceful uses. Historically, it has been often used during trickier constructions, allowing people to transport and handle massive stone blocks and other unwieldy things, and even today this is often the case. Fancy cranes are expensive; a conjured hand only costs mana.

Wards: Spells that envelop the entire area and enforce a particular effect on everything inside this domain. Usually protective in nature, hence the name, but some wards react rather violently when the right conditions are triggered. Alarm spells, magic inhibitor zones and spells that resist specific spells, types of magic, environmental extremes and other threats are an example of warding magic. Wards tend to have very long casting times, making them of limited use in combat situations if they had not been applied on the target beforehand. Additionally, different wards interfere with one another, making it tricky to stack multiple ones upon the same target. Most professional warders measure their skill in terms of how many different wards they can stack together and how smoothly they work together – a task that gets drastically more difficult as one adds each additional ward into the project.

Warding is both easy and hard. If one is only interested in casting temporary wards, the field is not too difficult. A fair amount of experimentation and experience is required to figure out how to make multiple wards work together smoothly, but this is nothing unmanageable. Many mages specialize in the field in such a manner, erecting temporary warding zones when employed to do so.

However, while this is a perfectly respectable way to make a living, it is not the most profitable one. The real money lies in the construction of permanent wards, and this requires considerable expertise in spell formula. Since spell formulas are notoriously difficult, this raises the difficulty of the job immensely. Though many professional warders dream of eventually transitioning into the field of permanent wards, very few actually have what it takes to pull it off. This makes this sort of warder extremely well paid, and often reluctant to help others enter the same field and lower the prices.

Divination: Spells that gather and organize information based on the caster’s query. Scrying, magical sight, mapping spells, tracking spells, forensic magic and magic designed to analyze things all fall under this discipline. Divinations require some kind of link to the target of the divination, either a physical object or some of the caster’s memories. They are range-limited – a caster cannot cast a divination on a target that is miles away from them, and the spells that seek a non-specific target will only scan a certain area around the caster before giving up. Divinations that aim to predict the future or reconstruct the past are only guesses based on the clues the spell was presented with, and tend to be unreliable – future prediction more so than past reconstruction.

Divination spells are extremely useful in many facets of life and not terribly difficult to cast. Moreover, divination is not a very mana intensive field, putting a greater emphasis on good shaping skills than the size of one’s mana reserves. Most divination spells are rather cheap for their level. This makes divinations a popular choice amongst those with below-average or average mana reserves. However, divination spells are somewhat unique in that being able to cast a divination spell is no guarantee that it will be useful to you. Interpreting information received from a divination spell can be fiendishly difficult, and can often result in a string of gibberish and a raging headache. Additionally, divination suffers from the so-called ‘garbage in, garbage out’ syndrome – if you feed improper information into your divination spell, or start with an ill-considered reference point, you will get a result that is incorrect or misleading.

None of this stops people from pursuing the field, of course, but it does mean that divination requires an uncommon amount of dedication and discipline from a mage. As such, most diviners are narrowly specialized in divination, neglecting other fields of magic to focus on their chosen discipline. Only the most talented of diviners, or very old ones who are already hitting the point of diminishing returns in their studies, can afford to invest some of their energies into other fields.

Alteration: Spells that restructure existing matter into other configurations. Terrain shaping spells, effects that let the caster warp materials into different shapes and fabrication magic all fall under this discipline. Changes are permanent and cannot be dispelled. Alteration can only shuffle atoms and molecules around, it cannot transmute them into different elements. The ability of the mage to use this type of magic is severely limited by the user’s knowledge of chemistry and material science (and engineering/architecture if sufficiently complex projects are attempted) so advanced transformations remain out of reach for most mages.

Alteration magic is similar to divination, in that it requires an uncommon degree of focus if one plans to specialize in it. This is due to the great deal of scientific and engineering knowledge that one must possess to use the ability effectively. As such, alteration specialists tend to be narrowly specialized in the field and eschew spreading themselves thin by studying other fields of magic in parallel to their primary one.

Dimensionalism: Spells that manipulate space and time. Teleportation, summoning, temporal dilation, phasing, dimensional gates and pocket dimensions all fall under this discipline. Dimensionalism is a notoriously difficult field of magic to practice. The spells require both great quantity of mana, excellent shaping skills and a great deal of complex theoretical knowledge to pull off.

Due to the high difficulty of the field, as well as the incredible potential for abuse many of its spells have, dimensionalism is not taught to beginning mages. Only by practicing other forms of magic may one eventually grow to a point where they can begin to tackle this field. Even then, access to dimensionalism is often restricted along political lines. All of this makes dimensionalism a fairly rare type of magic amongst mages and it’s vanishingly rare for someone to specialize in it – by the time a mage gains access to dimensionalism, they typically already have their primary specialty and are reluctant to change it. Most dimensionalists are mere dabblers.

Transformation Magic: Spells that transform the target into something else, in whole or in part. Shapeshifting and many augmentation spells belong in this discipline. Transformation magic works by applying the so called ‘transformation shell’ over the target’s soul, temporarily altering their form. Thus, it requires both the target and the source of the transformation shell to have a soul in order for it to work.

Transformation magic, although not terribly difficult, can have severe consequences if not done correctly. Additionally, a mage that transformed into a non-humanoid form will find it difficult to cast spells, which is a pretty big drawback no matter how impressive the other form is. As such, transformation is not taught to beginning students in most schools and most mages shy away from it. Thus, it is a rather rare form of magic – few mages dabble in it and specializing in it is not common. Most transformation specialists combine their expertise with alchemy, selling transformation potions to mages that need them for some purpose but don’t want to mess with a potentially dangerous field like that.

Mind Magic: Spells that target the mind. Focuses around manipulating people’s thoughts, emotions, memories, senses and perceptions. Mental illusions, compulsions, memory alteration, mental communication, emotion spells and various other mind-affecting spells fall under this discipline.

Mind magic is not terribly difficult to cast and, like divinations, it puts far greater emphasis on shaping skills than mana reserves. Mind magic is very mana efficient. However, except for the spells that target the minds of animals, mind magic is heavily restricted and has a very poor reputation among mages and civilians alike. Thus, mind magic specialists are very rare.

Soul Magic: Spells that affect the soul. This includes binding them (used to contain unruly spirits or animate the dead), modifying them, enforcing effects on them (curses and geas), connecting them to other souls, and even damaging them in various ways (souls are indestructible and cannot be truly destroyed, but they can be damaged and twisted in various ways). Often simply called necromancy, though technically necromancy refers only to the creation of undead.

Soul magic is impossible to practice without obtaining soul sight, which is an extremely difficult and dangerous process for most people. It is also very, very illegal. Thus, only priests and criminals specialize in it, and it is rare to see mages capable of performing it.

Blood Magic: Magic that deals with the manipulation of a person’s life force, usually using the target’s blood as a proxy. Ritual sacrifice, powering spells through one’s own health, improved enhancement rituals and bloodline theft are all accomplished through blood magic.

Life force is a very potent form of mana, useful for a lot of things. Unlike spending mana, however, spending one’s life force is a pretty big deal – life force recovers extremely slowly and the body will not easily relinquish it to the caster. It must be coaxed or forced into allowing it, and no matter the method used it will result in lasting weakening and sickness that will persist for days or even weeks. Vertigo, exhaustion, lethargy and phantom pains are all typical consequences of life force depletion. Additionally, while losing a little life force from time to time will not permanently affect a person, dipping into one’s life force too deeply or too often will inflict permanent consequences… and it’s hard to know where exactly the limit lies.

All of this means that blood mages dislike using their own life force as a rule, and instead focus on stealing it from others. And this stolen life force is usually used for demon summoning. Because of that, blood magic is very, very illegal – easily on par with soul magic, if not worse. Most countries deliberately suppress information about blood magic, other than warning people that it’s bad and they should never use it. Despite that, the field refuses to die out.

Multi-Disciplinary Fields:

Illusionism: A multi-disciplinary magical discipline that deals with creation of highly realistic magical constructs, in order to deceive, distract or entertain the target. Most illusions are intangible ghosts made out of light and sound, but skilled illusionists can weave additional energies into the image in order to fool various exotic senses or employ conjuration in order to make their illusions tangible. Some illusions also employ mental compulsions to better fool the target, but the very presence of mind magic can alert certain mages that something is wrong, so illusions that use mind magic are not strictly better than those don’t. Some illusions are entirely mental in nature, and do not exist outside the target’s mind, but they are classified as illusions rather than mind magic due to requiring similar illusion-crafting skills to cast. Disbelieving an illusion, contrary to popular belief, does absolutely nothing – the image is real, just not what it appears to be. Most illusions are very delicate, however, and are easy to dispel with magic (and sometimes simple physical force).

Illusionism was once a very popular field of magic, with many practitioners and specialists. This was because mages were rarer in the past, and non-mages had a very fuzzy conception of what magic was and what its limits were. Thus, illusions were a lot more threatening and mysterious than they are today – even an obvious intangible phantom could potentially turn the tide of battle or cow a superstitious peasant into submission. These days, this is no longer true. Obvious illusions will be recognized as such, and even fairly realistic ones will often cause suspicions since people are more familiar with magic. This, along with the fact that illusionism isn’t at all easy to practice, has caused the number of illusionists to greatly decline. The field is unlikely to actually die out, and some illusionists have found great success in applying their skills to entertainment projects, but many mages with fondness for the field lament the current state of the discipline.

Medical Magic: Another multi-disciplinary field, one that deals with diagnosing illnesses via divination and then using a form of alteration to heal wounds, cure diseases and otherwise help the patient. Medical magic requires a great deal of knowledge about human anatomy and various biological processes in order to be effective. It is a very young magical discipline, having been founded only after the gods fell silent and stopped granting their priests healing spells, and even so it took many years for the field to gather sufficient reputation to be taken seriously and attract world-class experts to its banner. Recently it received a huge boost when the Weeping swept across Altazia, which caused many wealthy organizations and individuals to invest heavily into it. Even today, medical magic is used to supplement the more traditional alchemical treatments rather than as a cure for everything.

Medical magic is considered to be hands-down the hardest field of magic to pursue. It requires a massive amount of theoretical knowledge and impeccable shaping skills, its relative youth makes it hard to find qualified teachers and training in it requires living targets. It is almost unheard of for medical mages to practice any form of magic except ones that could somehow support their chosen specialization. It is a common opinion among people that medical magic requires absolutely everything from the practitioner.

That said, medical mages are extremely well paid, so there is never any shortage of candidates clamoring to become one.

Combat Magic: Probably the most well-known and popular field of study that draws upon multiple magical disciplines is combat magic. Conjuring defensive force fields, throwing around fireballs, telekinetically hurling objects at opponents and disintegrating obstacles are all examples of combat magic. Although virtually all magic has some sort of possible combat application, the term ‘combat magic’ normally refers to spells that focus on fast casting time, overcoming the opponent’s defences and which require little preparation to be made effective. Some disciplines are more conductive to this than others: projection, negation, animation and conjuration are the easiest fields to apply to these spellcasting principles, followed by alteration and dimensionalism.

Combat magic is deceptively simple. On one hand, most combat spells have rather modest shaping requirements and can be learned quite quickly by a dedicated mage. On the other hand, the very traits that make these spells so potent in combat inevitably come at the cost of mana efficiency and safety features. Combat magic places extreme demands on the mage’s mana reserves and getting it wrong is more likely to hurt the caster. This, along with the inherently lethal nature of fighting for a living, means that combat magic is considered quite hard to master. Many mages know how to cast a combat spell or two for use in emergencies, but they would not dare call themselves combat mages.

Despite this, combat magic is very common everywhere, and popular as a specialty. Even people who are not very suited for it often direct their energies into the field. Battle has always been the most glorious of occupations to many, and many more don’t get to choose whether they want to fight or not. Most states also enthusiastically encourage people to focus on this discipline, as there is always demand for more battlemages somewhere.

Artifice-Related Fields:

Spell Formula: Used in the creation of permanent wards and magical items, spell formulas anchor spells into a carefully-crafted diagram to make them persist indefinitely. The anchor must be able to withstand the mana being channelled through it and it should not disrupt the spell boundary as much as possible, which may necessitate the use of exotic materials in anchor construction. Spell formula require high knowledge of mathematics and magic theory to use well, though simply copying existing schematics is relatively easy if one is already available.

Spell formula are notoriously difficult. Even copying an existing spell formula can be challenging, requiring high manual dexterity, a lot of patience and an ability to cast and anchor all of the spells necessary to create the final product. Additionally, if a mage wants to modify the diagram even slightly, they need a lot of theoretical knowledge and mathematical expertise to pull it off. As such, spell formula experts tend to be very rare and well paid. A lot of people dabble in it, however, since high demand for spell formula experts makes their services too expensive for many.

Alchemy: One of the few magical disciplines that does not require any sort of shaping skills to use, alchemy is basically magical chemistry – gather the proper ingredients and follow the recipe in order to get a magical product. Medical elixirs and salves, temporary augmentation potions, powerful poisons, mind-affecting brews, exotic alloys and extra-durable construction materials are just some of the examples of what alchemy is capable of.

Alchemy is not a very difficult field to dabble in, but it is very expensive to seriously pursue. The materials for alchemy are not cheap, and neither is equipment. Additionally, alchemy is tightly regulated in most places, as well as already controlled by established alchemical workshops that usually have special access to valuable alchemical ingredients and knowledge of secret methods that make their products cheaper and/or better than any newcomer can possibly be. Thus, mages who decide to specialize in alchemy either come from families already involved with alchemical trade or are exceptionally wealthy and thus able to finance an attempt to break into the field.

Tetra & Abnazia

The current political situation in the Altazian continent is clearly unsustainable. The Splinter Wars have fractured the previous states that made up the Old Alliance, creating a complicated landscape of tiny statelets and moderately-sized powers, but this is less of a stable equilibrium and more of a compromise that nobody is really happy with. Right now, the three main contenders for the new ruler of the continent – Eldemar, Sulamnon and Falkrinea – are lying low, but a new war is quietly brewing beneath the surface. The Big Three, as they are known, are constantly probing their rivals for any sign of weakness, making alliances with minor players and spying on each other for any scrap of information as to what they’re doing on their end.

Many of the current Splinter States are not strong enough to survive on their own in the long term and are well aware of this. For them, the main concerns while going into the future is whether they’ll be able to choose the ‘right’ side in the upcoming conflict and under what terms they will be absorbed by the victor. Others, though, have higher aspirations. Some, especially the states far away from the Big Three, hope to attain high degrees of autonomy by default – it is hard to govern distant places without a high degree of delegation, even with magic. Some of them hope to make themselves such a tough nut to crack that major powers would rather negotiate with them than war, whether by pursuing some kind of unique national advantage or by forging alliances with their fellow minor states.

There are two Splinter States that aim straight to the top, aiming to compete with the Big Three for the leadership role in a future Altazian super-state. These are Tetra and Abnazia, two relatively large and prosperous states in the western part of the continent.

Though powerful, neither Tetra not Abnazia are really states on the level of the Big Three. This, coupled with the considerable distance between them and the heartland of the continent, causes the Big Three to be dismissive of these two ‘pretenders’. The state that ends up controlling Altazia’s Central Valley, with its vast population and industry, holds an insurmountable advantage over some so-called ‘power’ out there on the periphery of the continent.

Tetra and Abnazia are well aware of all this, of course, it’s just that they don’t think any of the Big Three will be able to triumph over the other two any time soon. It’s all well and good to say that the continent will be united eventually, but if that ‘eventually’ turns out to be several decades of grueling warfare, that gives rising powers like them a fair amount of time to work with. Moreover, while the Big Three are busy fighting for the Central Valley, they can hardly stop Tetra and Abnazia from securing their local region by swallowing up any vulnerable nearby states.

The Kingdom of Tetra is a trading nation, heavily involved in the trade with Miasina and Hsan. They have a very large and capable navy, but their military is of dubious strength. It looks good on paper, but it is a product of recent militarization, making it somewhat disorganized and untested in the actual field of battle. They have an extremely firm grasp on the trade routes going through the Shivan Archipelago and the Xlotic coast, having achieved virtual monopoly in certain markets, and they are constantly pushing for more. There is considerable conflict between the crown faction, which wants the kingdom to keep pursuing its current path of vying for supremacy in Altazia, and the merchant faction, which is pushing towards a less belligerent stance that would see the state focus exclusively trade concerns and avoid entangling themselves in Altazian politics. Their main rival is Falkrinea, which is similarly trade focused and also possesses a powerful fleet.

The Kingdom of Abnazia does not have any particular strength, but also no obvious weakness either. They are somewhat like Eldemar in this regard, but with better diplomacy. Abnazia wishes to expand westward, towards the frontier states located beyond the Winter Mountains. These lands are poorly developed and sparsely populated, having been colonized only recently, but any country that could unite all this land under its rule would have quite a bit of power on its fingertips. Quantity has a quality all of its own, after all. In any case, although Abnazia claims these lands rightfully belong to them (a lot of the colonists came from Abnazia originally, due to its closeness and strategic position), nobody else is willing to tolerate naked aggression on their part. Thus, they are quietly building up their forces and laying down the groundwork for the eventual occupation by subverting various interest groups in the targeted frontier states. The current consensus is that Abnazia is being too ambitious, trying to swallow more than they can chew, but if their plan succeeds and they stabilize the vast western frontier under their rule, they could potentially become a genuine contender for leadership of the continent.

(You can find the location of Tetra and Abnazia on a map I posted way back.)

Brief Absence

I am just notifying you, my dear readers, that I will be going on a 5-day trip soon and won’t be able to answer your questions.

So if you post a comment and receive no answer, you now know why. Feel free to leave comments anyway, though – I’ll read through them and answer when I get back.