The April Foundry

Last challenge didn't work. Lets try a different thing

So Island25 was a bust - to be frank, depression came back and I set myself too grand a workload for my writer’s stomach. I’m not giving up on writing, though. PermanentBacklog has started The April Foundry, a simple and enjoyable idea to fill out more of a world in the 30 days of April. I’m gonna go for it and hopefully, this works! I’ll just update this post each day, instead of making a tiny little post every day.

April 1st

Create a d6 table of biomes found in your setting.

I’ve had to make this a little bit tighter as some sky islands in my world are just a whole biome in and of themself, so I’ve gone for smaller scale unique terrain “blips”, like microbiomes.

April 2nd

Choose one or two words and describe how they represent the tone of your setting.

Forgotten: Much of the world is old, lost and gone in some sense or another. Many peoples have fallen, many technologies and magical techniques lost. All that means to players is there’s a lot to discover!

Engineered: The world has binding rules that it has been built upon, laws and scripts that determine how things function. Those things are not immutable, but they are fundamental.

April 3rd

Describe how common, if at all, magic (or supernatural phenomena) is in your setting.

Magic is fucking everywhere, lol. All of the lineages of the world have their own innate abilities in some sense, but people don’t really consider those magic. Instead, there are three established magic systems:

• Ætheric Energistics, The Art of The Mind

• Bloodkraft, The Art of The Body

• Psionic Power, The Art of The Soul

Each of these is rather involved with their own upsides, downsides and rules.

April 4th

Is your setting newly discovered or has it been mostly/fully explored?

Much of Thanaera, the World Above, was explored, grand civilisations created by the Ancients - the first to inhabit the sky islands. But then the Ancients all fell. Countless died, metropolises crumbled, and the power of revival - coming back from the dead - was gone for good. The World Below (its true name is not known) is long dead. Thousands of years have seemingly passed but much of its cities have oddly been preserved rather well. Regardless, down there is incredibly dangerous - those who go down there only sometimes return, but when they do, it’s often with grand discoveries.

April 5th

How advanced are the denizens in your setting?

Most people of Thanaera consider themselves to be relatively well stationed - trade is good, new bastions of civilisation are being planned and built, borders are slowly expanding, and people are living generally good lives overall. Their technologies serve what they need very well, but there’s no cars or planes or internet or anything - pretty standard fare fantasy with a higher standard quality of life overall. However, there are a few in the world who recognise the truth - much of the world is slowly stagnating. Magic hasn’t grown in any sense in decades, nations haven’t fought in over a hundred years - people are complacent, stalling. Those who spot that and decide to head out into the world to be beacons of change are known by a variety of names: specialists, adventurers, spelunkers, revolutionaries. Truthfully, they’re the players of The New Game.

April 6th

List two or more established industries in your setting.

The Free Skylian Empire has established a grand construction force. Their national pride is Orukin Concrete, a strong, self-repairing and self-reinforced building material. Nations around the world often hire Orukin construction companies to build bases on new islands they travel to.