NEONANDGARBAGE

Sornieth. This is a scavenger world settled into the bones of at least two apocalypses. The modern incarnation, the Third Age, was born from the nuclear event that ended the technologically advanced Second Age, and new life has carved a path for itself on a planet made for species larger and hardier than the ones who live on it now: the continents are enormous, the terrain inhospitable, and the weather catastrophically extreme. In much of the world mobility is the biggest factor in the odds of survival, and thus many societies on Sornieth are vehicle-based. When mobility is not an option or settlement is desired, the basis of success hinges almost exclusively to agriculture.

Magic here is diverse and common, but equally so are scientific engineering and divine influence. At its best, Sornieth exhibits all of these things being utilized in harmony. At its worst, it has none of them. Beyond the clustered territorial claims of the eleven recognized gods there is Nothing: no life, no magic, no divinity; only the featureless foundation of a planet burned away.





Scraptech. Technology constructed from found objects. The earliest rigs and complex tools in Sornieth were pieced together from the remains of similar Second Age objects. No machine or physical thing can be considered destroyed or useless so long as its parts can be repurposed into something else – this is the essence of scraptech, and in a manner of speaking, of life on modern Sornieth.

Magitech. The marriage of magical and nonmagical materials. Most magitech is preexisting, inherently nonmagical technology (or scraptech) that has been enhanced by the addition of a magical element. The most widespread example would be the magitech engines used in some rigs and flying machines, which are at their most basic level solar-powered engines modified and made self-sufficient by the incorporation of arcane crystal shards.

LightningTek. Electric-powered technology manufactured exclusively in the Shifting Expanse, born from the divine storms that brew eternally in its highest altitudes. LightningTek is many decades ahead of its time. No other territory in the world is technologically outfitted to source Stormland electricity, and only a few could ever afford it.

Passive/external magic. External magic is generated by an outside force, often in the form of an inherently magical object or concept (as in a crystal; a talisman; a language). This is passive magic that functions as a tool, and it can be manipulated by anyone willing to learn.

Active/internal magic. Internal magic is the naturally occurring ability to generate magical energy from within. This is active magic, the magic of creation, and it is a recessive gene that can appear in humans and all species of beastfolk. It’s expressed most commonly through witchcraft and elemental sorcery.

Leylines/alchemic magic. In previous incarnations of the world leylines were invisible trails of passive divine energy that connected sacred locations and were discoverable with pendulums, dowsing rods, and metaphysical abilities. But like attracts like, and during the apocalyptic nuclear event that ended the Second Age energy of all kinds pooled along these lines, transforming them from benign pathways to potent stews of interacting, intermingled magic. The leylines can be thought of as a swollen, polluted river system: the magic flooding them is always flowing back towards the largest known source – a crater lake of liquid magic where the Grand Reactor is theorized to have stood – and the channels will sweep up everything they encounter along the way.

Most anything can be conducted and transmuted along the leylines. Objects and beings that fall into the stream might wash up again in thirty seconds or thirty years, but they will be fundamentally changed regardless. Voices, sounds, and radio transmissions can be carried across countless clicks of physical distance or through an untold amount of time. Objects retrieved from the leylines make unique and often very powerful elements of scraptech, as they may be foreign to the Third Age.

Quote: Tldr; think Baldwin’s Bubbling Brew, but it’s a worldwide river system that might spit you out as a pile of ooze or an hundred-eyed eldritch monstrosity. It's a surprise!

• Aliens. In essence: cryptids. “Alien” is the catch-all term for anything eldritch that emerges from the leylines that is alive but clearly not natural or native, and most aliens are thought to be people or common animals altered beyond recognition by physical exposure to the magic. Some are theorized to be creatures from another time, or another dimension, caught up in the space-time soup of the lines and spit out into present day Sornieth.

Starfall. Arguably the most powerful territory in the world, Starfall was the first in Sornieth to achieve stability and has progressed well beyond being preoccupied with simple survival. The communities of academics here are pioneers of philosophy, farming science, arcane practices, and magitech; meanwhile, the territory’s leadership and ambitious religious clergy are one and the same, and their raw divine power is globally recognized. The average standard of living in Starfall is the highest in the world. It is one of four territories that make up the global power alliance commonly called the Quad. Starwoods. At the center of this ethereal forest lies the world’s largest pooling of leyline energy: a lake of liquid time and magic towards which all other lines flow. Reality is fragile here, and time and space loosely defined. The Glitchstrip. This narrow swath of desert lies in the east-facing rainshadow of the crystalline mountain range at the Wasteland border, though neither territory desires any claim on it. A potent combination of leyline tributaries, natural order, and philanthropic irresponsibility has mutated the Glitchstrip into something wretchedly dangerous and strange, even by Sorthieth’s standards.

The Stormland. ▶︎|| LIGHTNING RADIO. Arguably the most powerful territory in the world, most of this desert region is kept under lock and key. Its electric cities are sleek, humming oases of culture and technology so advanced it’s otherworldly – but all this development is hidden behind fortified electric force fields and accessible only by invite, birthright, or divine intervention. The distribution of the Stormland’s signature LightningTek and its groundbreaking manufacturing processes is so tightly controlled it has yet to be replicated by foreign engineers. It is one of the four Quad territories.

The Burning World. ▶︎|| FIRE RADIO. Sornieth’s foremost source of minerals and metal alloys, the Burning World’s land-owning families export raw materials across the globe for immense profit, which they split between themselves and the governing clergy. The strain of the Burning Word’s class divide has created a decades-long state of civil unrest, and the practices of the she-king High Priestesses are heavily scrutinized – but the territory’s excellent foreign business relations and high-demand artisan metalwork keep it in the good graces of its allies. It is part of the Quad power alliance.

The Highland. ▶︎|| WIND RADIO. From wheeled, sail-powered groundships to that balloon-hung urban sprawl in the stratosphere, the tiered Highlands are a marvel of scraptech at every elevation. This is the entrepreneurial birthplace of Sornieth’s zeppelins and long-distance flying machines, and the territory’s floating shipyards and skyport towns never sleep. The governing clergy is characterized by practicality and strong family values, and invests much of its wealth into social programs and campaigning to rally a sense of territorial unity among the vertically scattered population. It is the final member of the Quad alliance.

The Sunfields. The soaring redwood forests and wide plains of this big-sky country are intertwined with the sun bleached skeleton of the ancient world. Income generated from agricultural exports could make the Lightland a global power, if not for the chronic instability: inland of its charming cliffside towns this territory devolves into land wars, beastfolk conflict, and cursed archeological ruins. One of the most devout territories, glory for the Lightweaver motivates much of what happens here. For decades it has been negotiating for an alliance with the Quad territories, but has been thus far unsuccessful.

The Sea of a Thousand Currents. A land spiritually adrift. The mysterious underwater Seadweller tribes were long respected for their incredible mystic prowess, but withdrawal from the surface world in the hundred-year silence of their deity has nearly reduced these people to mythology. Life above water carries on with little concern for the memory of the Tidelord, and folks from all walks of life can be found in the colorful floating raft communities and harbor towns. The Underleagues. The colloquial term for the settled underwater territories to which the reclusive Seafolk have isolated themselves. Rumors of this foreign landscape include cities nested in the rib cages of extinct beasts half the size of mountains; eternal twilights; reservoirs of leyline energy that consume ships; and bottomless trenches from which any manner of magical and malicious things might emerge.

The Waste. ▶︎|| PLAGUE RADIO. A scavenger’s paradise. Planted firmly in the path of all major land routes between Starfall and the northern latitudes, the Wasteland’s highest population density can be found along the far coast, feeding off the traffic of the world’s busiest trade road in cult-riddled cities made of equal parts meat, magic, and scraptech. Eastward, most of the natives are the zealous nomad clans who live and die in competition for the desert’s scarce resources and the attention of the Plaguebringer. There is no rule of law in the Waste. The people and beasts here revel in their reputation as confrontational, unconquerable, and notoriously difficult to kill. Urbanna. On the cliffs of the Plagueland’s western seacoast, this is the Waste’s unofficial capitol city and only metropolis, by definition. Urbanna is an important checkpoint on the Long Haul, and much of its wealth is generated by freight haulers, traders, and the passage tolls imposed on them when they hit the gates at city limits. Urbanna’s liveliness disguises the social unrest in its civilian districts, where there’s been a religious cult war brewing for a generation.

The Labyrinth. The towering wilds at the top of the world are a fortress teeming with mysterious wildlife, beastfolk, and spiritual peoples hidden in the lush darkness. Under the ever-watching eyes of the jungle, independent business types risk the tropical rivers to trade for local wares – strange produce, handcrafted textiles, talismans and curios for the mystic arts – to resell across Sornieth. This is a territory saturated in eerie magic: the only laws here are the inevitabilities of death and birth, but in the fertile bowels of the Gladekeeper’s wilderness, even such rules as those may be broken.

The Shadewood. ▶︎|| SHADOW RADIO. This twisted deciduous woodland that dissolves into cypress swamps and gnarled wine-dark bayous at its coastlines serves as the Labyrinth’s geographical cousin. A volatile web of ambitious covens play games of alliance as they build and destroy and build again their black market empires, but the civilian population, dead and alive, is largely dismissive of global affairs. Despite this the Shadowland lurks as a simmering threat on the radars of the foreign powers across the Sea, on account of the Shadowbinder’s powerful witch-queens and their access to dark magic no other territory has been able to crack.

The South. A land frozen in time and progress. The frigid South has not responded generously to Starfall’s interest in its protected archeological wonders, and pressure from the Quad alliance to sanction foreign expeditions into the ice floes has only further alienated this stoic territory. Additionally, encroaching ocean levels are gradually displacing the population and forcing communities into unwilling contact – but life in the South’s mountains and glacial sheets is as harsh as it gets in Sornieth, and for better or worse the grind for survival still distracts from the buckling defenses against outside interference.

Wyrmhome. Once upon a time this was the South’s dry northern counterpart, a xenophobic old-guard world of fossilized history and mineable magic – but the native population’s refusal to pivot away from beastfolk Exaltation has unintentionally transformed Wyrmhome into a spirited multicultural sanctuary for Runners and others seeking freedom from the conventions of modern worship. However, in recent decades Wyrmhome has begun floundering to meet the needs of its booming population, as an entire planet’s refugee crisis falling on the shoulders of a single land is hardly sustainable.

Nothing. Beyond the domain of the gods, the countless other continents and seas of the planet are chemically stripped of anything life-sustaining. Out in the Nothing the land does not even qualify as a desert: it's featureless stone and crystal clear toxic water, silent and still. This feature of the world has little impact on daily life in Sornieth, and like the sky above and the undersea trenches below the Nothing simply is, despite the countless mythologies and holy scriptures that attempt to make peace with its presence, and what it implies.

Exaltation. Ritual sacrifice, and the bedrock of worship in Sornieth. Generations ago it was standard to Exalt beastfolk to the deities, but in all territories but Wyrmhome this is no longer an approved practice – the popular modern perspective being that beastfolk are sub-human, and therefore unworthy of contributing their life force to the gods.

Mark. A summons to Exaltation. It appears as a permanent divine symbol on the forehead, and may be manifested by either a deity or a high priest by way of an ancient name ritual.

Ancient Name. The name by which the gods know you. There is potential for immense magic in one’s ancient name, and humans protect theirs by going by titles and nicknames. Sharing one's name is an act of intimacy, and revealing someone else’s without consent is universally considered to be an ugly act. “What are you called?” or ”What do you go by?” is the standard way to ask how to address someone.

Runner. A Marked refugee of an Exaltation summons. Across most of the world, those who refuse their divine calling are considered blasphemers and cultural degenerates. Runners are in danger of being captured and sacrificed – by proper ritual means or not – in all lands but Wyrmhome.

The Network. The anti-Exaltation subculture. The Network is the purposefully vague term for the nebulous global association of establishments, groups, and individuals who risk ostracization and violence for helping Runners find sanctuary. Some Network entities are entire towns; others are a lone individual who will guide Runners through the back alleys of a devout city for a large enough handful of coin.