Tahuum Itaqiin

Numerous cultures and their complex interactions over history   The range of cultures and societies encountered in Tahuum Itaqiin is widely diverse, corresponds with environmental influences, and has changed substantially throughout the Continent's social history. Within a given society or cultural region, the mother language of locals has changed over the generations, sometimes with remnants (substrates) of dead languages evident in current speech. Cultural values have remained somewhat consistent within each civilization but have been tested and warped by the deprivation, conflict, and overall competition of this world's Second Era as well as by the relatively recent peace and abundance of its current Third Era. Political structures have changed over time, too, with people enjoying more freedom, autonomy, and direct political representation in some centuries than others. The landscape of religion and magical practice has changed dramatically, magical practice having evolved alongside the history of thought, philosophy, and science in Tahuum Itaqiin.

Social systems and how they adapt or falter in times of crisis   The Third Era or so-called Revival Era is something of a gilded age in certain respects, with clear progress among the most thriving societies and most successful social groups being contrasted by exploitation and deprivation others. The merchant princes of Andaen administrate a nominally free society but discourage competition with their interests and hold themselves above their laws; the glorious palaces, temples, and noble estates of Te-Dai are funded with tribute from a great many smaller nations; and developments in travel and commerce compel explorers and entrepreneurs to seek novel sources of wealth at the expense of others lands and peoples.   The cohesiveness within and cooperativeness among the societies of Tahuum Itaqiin are already actively strained by normal state-building processes, and are poised to be tested more strenuously by the inexplicable eldritch incursions into the world. Bad blood between groups can lead to mistrust and scapegoating that undermines solutions to the world's emergent problems, while genuinely strong coalitions may yet be able to hold fast.

Magic systems, the supernatural, and the limits of human knowledge   Conventional magical practice is constrained by a considerable number of limitations. For one, only a rare few people have the capacity to engage with the sympathetic force underlying the world; while seemingly all humans are at least indirectly aware of its presence, the capacity to manipulate this force has yet to take hold among more than one percent of humans through evolutionary processes. Many of those humans who do possess this genetic endowment fail to utilize their gift for any number of other personal or social reasons. Among those who do practice magic, spellcraft requires entering and maintaining an altered state of consciousness in order to exert one's will on existing magical force. Targeted manipulations of this force require the establishment of a sympathetic connection between a spell agent (component) and a spell subject (the target), with stronger connections being possible between more fundamentally similar agents and subjects. A spell's potency and precision can be refined further through acoustic and geometric or kinesthetic means, though such procedures are easily interrupted in a high-stress situation. Finally, maintaining a deliberate shift in magical force (a spell) is rarely practical and normally requires continued concentration, making spells with instantaneous effects preferable in practice. For all these reasons, magic is a powerful tool in the right hands but is far from universal; its influence on the human experience is significant yet limited.   The latest innovations in magical practice at once constitute a major achievement for humankind and a cause for undue intellectual arrogance. Secular institutions have overcome the previous dependence upon celestial figures or shamanistic rituals to perform feats of magic. Every day, theorists of magical practice make strides in increasingly potent and precise spellcraft; every day, too, the peoples of Tahuum Itaqiin come closer to having contend with a novel, otherworldly form of magic and its practitioners, one which no amount of supposedly enlightened research and study can adequately prepare for.

Adventuring, lore, and the world's hidden secrets   Given this world's complex history and magical phenomena, there is ample opportunity to go exploring and adventuring; even with the substantial efforts of this world's historians, bards, folklorists, and archivists, veritable reams of hidden lore have yet to be recorded. There is also ample evidence that some of the world's ruins and other hidden places have been sealed off deliberately, often by mages, perhaps less to ward off outsiders and more to keep their contents properly contained. Even divination magic has considerable limits in respect to the knowledge it can unveil, though these limits may yet be lifted as novel forms of magic are discovered.