Indulge me: I'll begin at the end.
The result is that
Waking Materia is a world in great flux. Player characters may be government or trade agents probing new nautical routes on the plane's haunted, monster-infested oceans. They might be tomb raiders exploring newly-exposed ruins for great treasure, or maverick scholars unburying the secrets of Materia's extraordinary
First Age. Citizens sometimes run afoul of nearby breaches in the
Veil, encountering creatures only known from ancient, fictional storybooks. All too often, border peoples are caught in territorial wars. Clerics and paladins of
Material Gods are increasingly forced to counter the machinations of certain
Duskscape Regents.
Waking Materia is rich in political intrigue, the "neighbouring"
Duskscape rich in monsters and isidious, alien influences.
And now, the beginning.
Welcome and thank you for reading. The following materials will introduce you to the diverse and mysterious world of
Waking Materia, one of the largest and most cosmopolitan worlds in the
Known Universe. It is a largely nautical world, having been subject to a mysterious catastophe known as the
Deluge, where much of the plane, save for the uplands circling its periphery, was drowned in demon-infested brine. Nautical travel is limited and extremely dangrous: Materia’s oceans are plagued by
terrible monsters and inexplicable but equally deadly weather phenomena. As the only landmasses remaining were once upland, Materia is an agriculturally sparse world with sometimes vicious clashes for resources. As it's a drastically different place both
before and
after the Deluge, Materia may be considered two settings in one, and that's not even including its shadowy mirror and the universe's myriad other planes scattered throughout the
Void.
Watching over the beings that reside on this plane are the
Material Gods, also known as the Waking Gods, the Kunitsukami or the Tuatha. They rule over a
wide variety of humanoid cultures.
Materia has a coterminous plane, varyingly known as the Umbral Realms, the Dream Time, Nod, the Lost Land, the Night Country, the Gloaming or O-Inai, however
The Author will refer to it by its
Middish Common name:
The Duskscape. It is a shifting, surreal, demiphysical realm where dead and dreaming souls wander, but is also a vast, functioning world all to itself, with
endemic fauna and
sentient societies, from the nightmarish
qlippoth to the bizarre
fae; from the
demonic city-states of
Dis and
Epitaph to the ascetic
Valkyries of Rom.
The Duskscape is ruled by its own pantheon of inscrutable, alien “gods”, known varyingly as the
Duskscape Regents, the Fomoraigh, the Kagamikami or the Cenobites. Gods of conceptual as opposed to material things, Waking Peoples can and sometimes do worship these beings, but do so at their own risk, for their ways are very different from the cultures of mundane Materia.
The Veil between the Duskscape and Waking Materia, once strong, is now fading in many places around the world. Reports of
monsters—strangely similar to mythological beasts from First Age texts—are increasing in the fringes of Waking society. What’s more, as the Veil weakens, the
Sunken Expanse is receding, exposing new landmasses and vast subterranean caverns. As if the otherworldly monsters crossing the Veil wasn’t enough, territorial warfare and tomb raiding are on the rise.
The result is that Materia is a world in great flux, but that you know.
In addition to the richness of this plane, the
Known Universe is comprised of
thousands of other planes scattered throughout the
Void: from mere, kilometre-wide "islands" of bare rock or water to vast ecumenopoli. Higher-level adventures may find players directly navigating the Void to these diverse worlds, or "taking the back door" and exploring the increasingly alien realms of the Duskscape's Far Umbra in search of similar Veils.
We the authors hope you enjoy this setting. We certainly have over the years!
