History and the Rupture - WIP
Welcome to the future. The year is 274 P.R. -- Post Rupture.
274 years ago, the world ended.
A fraction of the world's population survived the initial devastation as advanced arcanotech self-destructed, but the infrastructure of hundreds of countries was irreplaceably shattered. The true cause of the catastrophe is unknown, but the fact that magic was key is known, and magic is, consequentially, taboo in most places.
The survivors clustered together in small, self-sustaining communities. They protected each other against the rapidly-changing wildlife and struggled against magical and tectonic aftershocks of what they began to call the Rupture. As the natural world slowly calmed, people continued to persist, some even attempting to reverse-engineer the arcanotech of the past--this time, without magic.
Unimaginable amounts of knowledge were lost in the Rupture, along with uncounted lives. The people left behind in its wake began the back-breaking work of rebuilding their very civilization from the ground up.
Prior to the Rupture, the world was rife with dream-like potential; entities across different planes of reality were in regular communication with mortals, people were exploring the vast expanses beyond the very sky, and nothing was truly impossible. HYPEREVOLUTION
After the Rupture, only a fraction of the population survived. In the wake of the arcane and natural aftershocks that followed the Rupture, all living creatures--people, animals, and plants alike--found themselves rapidly and drastically changing to adapt to their newly-challenging environments. Something about the Rupture, or perhaps something that happened during it, had broken down the rigidity of flesh and form, and what had been a single species ruling the world shattered into countless facets. People grew fur, scales, wings, talons, extra limbs, tails, feathers, fangs, beaks, horns--whatever they needed most to survive. So did the wildlife around them and the plants that began to flourish in the sudden absence of industry. MAGIC
Magic, the lynchpin of the Rupture, was immediately demonized and shunned in the surviving populace. A singular person performing magic was taboo, punishable by ostracism or outright death in some communities. However, since magic itself had not ceased to exist, folk religions sprang up to take advantage of the benefits it could still safely provide, using communal rituals and festivals to endear themselves to the odds stacked against them. In order to separate the destructive history of magic from these less-risky rituals, the rituals were classed as religious ceremonies, led by a local priest and performed for the good of the community, never the good of the individual. COMPANIONS
Before the Rupture, many individuals had intelligent Companions, creatures or spirits from this world or another plane, uniquely skilled and able to assist the advance of arcane technology. After the Rupture, this practice became commonplace--when people were in such low numbers, it was simply prudent to befriend and domesticate as much of the world around them in order to survive. While the wildlife changed and mutated as quickly as the people, there were yet groups of previously-domesticated creatures that remained loyal to the people alongside whom they had always lived. Eventually, with the blessing of certain "religious" rituals, most people were partnered with one or two intelligent Companions, a cross-cultural tradition that has not wavered in the hundreds of years since the Rupture. TECHNOLOGY
Over time, interest in magic-free technology culminated in an attempt to reverse-engineer some of the most foundational tech of the past. Without the tools to salvage electronics, many places managed to restore basic metalcraft up to the steam engine, which is poised to further evolve--as soon as a combustion alternative is ascertained, as there are no fossil fuels or natural gas deposits readily available to power an industrial renaissance. MICROCULTURES
Over the centuries, self-contained communities have largely stabilized, and recently work has begun to restore the connective tissue between scattered clumps of people, reforming cultural and economic bonds. The isolated nature of survivors created a nearly infinite number of microcultures, bent to accommodate the localized traits of the people and their Companions, and when a generation can seemingly evolve so drastically from its forebears, race and ethnicity are no longer useful ways of self-categorizing communities. Each settlement, no matter its size, must be approached as unique and potentially strange to any visitors.
Prior to the Rupture, the world was rife with dream-like potential; entities across different planes of reality were in regular communication with mortals, people were exploring the vast expanses beyond the very sky, and nothing was truly impossible. HYPEREVOLUTION
After the Rupture, only a fraction of the population survived. In the wake of the arcane and natural aftershocks that followed the Rupture, all living creatures--people, animals, and plants alike--found themselves rapidly and drastically changing to adapt to their newly-challenging environments. Something about the Rupture, or perhaps something that happened during it, had broken down the rigidity of flesh and form, and what had been a single species ruling the world shattered into countless facets. People grew fur, scales, wings, talons, extra limbs, tails, feathers, fangs, beaks, horns--whatever they needed most to survive. So did the wildlife around them and the plants that began to flourish in the sudden absence of industry. MAGIC
Magic, the lynchpin of the Rupture, was immediately demonized and shunned in the surviving populace. A singular person performing magic was taboo, punishable by ostracism or outright death in some communities. However, since magic itself had not ceased to exist, folk religions sprang up to take advantage of the benefits it could still safely provide, using communal rituals and festivals to endear themselves to the odds stacked against them. In order to separate the destructive history of magic from these less-risky rituals, the rituals were classed as religious ceremonies, led by a local priest and performed for the good of the community, never the good of the individual. COMPANIONS
Before the Rupture, many individuals had intelligent Companions, creatures or spirits from this world or another plane, uniquely skilled and able to assist the advance of arcane technology. After the Rupture, this practice became commonplace--when people were in such low numbers, it was simply prudent to befriend and domesticate as much of the world around them in order to survive. While the wildlife changed and mutated as quickly as the people, there were yet groups of previously-domesticated creatures that remained loyal to the people alongside whom they had always lived. Eventually, with the blessing of certain "religious" rituals, most people were partnered with one or two intelligent Companions, a cross-cultural tradition that has not wavered in the hundreds of years since the Rupture. TECHNOLOGY
Over time, interest in magic-free technology culminated in an attempt to reverse-engineer some of the most foundational tech of the past. Without the tools to salvage electronics, many places managed to restore basic metalcraft up to the steam engine, which is poised to further evolve--as soon as a combustion alternative is ascertained, as there are no fossil fuels or natural gas deposits readily available to power an industrial renaissance. MICROCULTURES
Over the centuries, self-contained communities have largely stabilized, and recently work has begun to restore the connective tissue between scattered clumps of people, reforming cultural and economic bonds. The isolated nature of survivors created a nearly infinite number of microcultures, bent to accommodate the localized traits of the people and their Companions, and when a generation can seemingly evolve so drastically from its forebears, race and ethnicity are no longer useful ways of self-categorizing communities. Each settlement, no matter its size, must be approached as unique and potentially strange to any visitors.
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