Following the destruction of the world that was and the heavens crashing to earth, the world has never been the same. It was a blow to the body and spirit of the world that nations and empires never quite recovered from. Most of the old empires just fell apart, some from the destruction wrought by the falling citadels and terrible power the gods Channeled to try and save themselves, and most others in the chaos that followed.

Since those days, the world has slowly rebuilt itself. A few of the empires survived, but shrunk down in on themselves to survive and exist as cities and centres of learning now rather than the world-shaping Empires they used to be. A few brash cities have risen to fill that void, but the world itself is too strange and new for them to manage. The empires wait and bide their time, and some say the dead gods sleep lightly, their power still touching the world.

In the southern lands, for example, where the death god fell screaming like a bone-white star, the dead are cremated or else they rise from the ground, forbidden sleep and rest by the undead Channellers of the god, held in limbo by the gods last terrible inpouring of power to try and save Itself. The Bone Citadel remains as well, cold as winter, with the Channeled living inside it, unable to leave, the power of the god still reaching out from them to deny rest to the dead.

Most of the magicians of the old age died when the Spirits they had made compacts with were destroyed. The only survivors were a few apprentices and a small handful of Spirits, whose bargains are now more for mutual survival than anything else. A scattering of magicians remain, but the sources of their power have been shattered and much knowledge has been lost with the dead, into madness and ashes.

Channellers remain, but without gods they are hollow, aching things unable to do anything, half-mad and only a little sane at the best of times. Sometimes they believe the void speaks to them, but for the most part they stumble about, muttering obscure prophecies and dying of drug overdoses when they can no longer choose between madness and innocence. So it has become.

Into this world bereft of the Powers that once ruled it, new ones have been borne, of the ancient mocked alchemies and star charts that, some say, hold a key to energies that even the gods feared. A new age is dawning, many believe, but there are still some talents, some Gifts and remnants of the old world left, and only time will tell if those candles light into stars or gutter out into silence.

LIFE IN THE WORLD

The world has changed, more than most imagine. The old empires, run by the whim of gods and terrible wizard magic, are no longer. Entire continents no longer exist, giant swaths of land have been rendered inhabitable and every year the amount of people who travel diminishes as the world sunders apart into fragments. With no sea gods to calm the tides, ships have to be made to withstand such things, new skills learned to make that kind of vessel and so on. Diseases strike down the unwary, children are born deformed (or even stillborn), which never happened when the gods existed.

For all the terror and fear, the benefits of the gods far outweighed the costs of their tyranny. But they are gone, and no one knows what destroyed them - or even how it would be possible. Yet, somehow, the world has gone on. We still die and are reborn into new lives, children are born and die, time marches without a god of time and the weather is still the weather. True, more people die younger and painfully, but at least we are free of the whims of gods and the fates they designed for men. Whether this was worth it, or even intended, remains unknown.

Education And Such

Doesn't exist. Unless you specify a cliche covering it, your PC is not educated in reading, writing, and all of that. With the demise of the God of Education (Kholberg the Good), universities and such floundered and fell through. Home schooling is pretty much the norm, and mostly reserved for the upper classes only but money can buy anything after all.

Technology

Technology is pretty much Renaissance level in the city of Estavia and the surrounding area. Only the empire of Bremen claims a higher level of technology, but both places have been centres of alchemy for a long time, owing to mountains (Estavia) and a general hatred of other magia (Bremen, where they once tried to ban Channellers of the gods...). As such, and because the local area wasn't as hard hit buy the fall of the gods, things have actually been prospering over the past 300 years.

All technology has it's base in alchemy, which in turn is based on the principles of sympathy, contagion, the elements and the doctrine of signatures. Alchemy is, in the pure form, very unreliable. In the broad, it's quite useful in figuring out how to make cement, mortar, bricks and the like.

Religion

With the demise of the gods, many things have changed. Old certainties fell away and many people were terrified. But all wasn't lost; quite a few "gods" returned, as wizards and charlatans, and many people still pray and believe the gods exist in spite of the very obvious evidence that they do not. There is always hope, after all.

Life has continued, though. Some wizards and gifted have set up minor religions (called "cults" by those who fear them), the Channellers all go mad because where the gods were is only a void that devours their sanity, but the old traditions remain. The dead are cremated, all reincarnate after they die (and some believe they gods will as well, but have not finished dying yet...) and prayers and oaths in the names of the gods still abound, even if they are no more.

Metaphysically, it is known that the universe has always existed and always will. The shape of it changes from time to time, as it grows, or gets bored, or needs a change: the current shape of it has existed for several billion years, and the world of Urdu is the point at which said shape emerged. This makes the world very old, but doesn't confer anything special upon it.

The gods of the world were best understood as abstractions given form. They' wee not creations of belief, and didn't require worship (though many demanded it a reward for their work). Very little else about them was understood, because they didn't permit such things. And then the died, and no one knows what to make of that, or what it could mean. The number of gods was vast, ranging into the millions. The world of Urdu is in it's eleventh sun, some say, and the other suns and moons all had gods so very long ago. Some gods changed names or jobs or faced, or even retired to the heavens entirely, but eventually they'd come back as boredom is a foe even the gods fight in vain.

When people die, they are reborn, generally 2 generations after that. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later. The soul is, basically, a memory record of all lives lived. No one knows what the point of those are, nor the end result, but even gods could not destroy one, though they could prevent people from being reborn and harm or influence their current life. There are still some terrible items of power they left in their dying that can do such things, but they are mostly rumours to terrify children with.

The belief of the gods, insofar as it is understood, is that they - and all life - existed as company for the universe, so that it wouldn't be so alone. it created life inside it all the time, just to try and find someone to talk to. Apparently they thought that the entire point of life was to ask "Why", but that some questions could never be answered since the universe didn't think on scales even the gods could grasp.

MAGIA

Magic is important still. Though drastically reduced from what it used to be with the demise of so many wizards and inbreeding crippling the Gifted slowly but surely, magia is still a power in the world, and respected as such.

Things magia can NOT do: mind reading, magical healing, shape shifting and the like. Transmuting things is only possible with alchemy, and even then it's very difficult and expensive. Wizards are men and women who, through at least 5 years (often a decade) of study, have learned to See power and to see as wizards do, which means to see what is really there when looking at things. Most modern wizards act as advisers and wise men, using their training and talents to aid rulers and friends and seldom actually making use of magic. There are, of course, the exceptions who hunger for power. But there are fewer of those than many suppose.

Mechanics of Wizardry

A wizard is a human who has learned magic. This isn't easy. Learning spells takes years of effort, to get the words right, to bend them and alter the spell to different shapes, to make optimum use of energy and such. Being a wizard is NOT easy and a lifetime's work that never ends. However, they are rewards. To whit:

Spirits. A spirit is an entire, once the spirit of a place (forests, rivers and such that gods couldn't be bothered with). Most were the unions of gods and mortals long ago, and before the gods fell they would make deals with Wizards, given energy in exchange for promises and oaths and sometimes destroying wizards. There are few of them left now, though, and few wizards, so they tend to be partners who supply the wizard with the energy to power a spell.
- Sight. A wizard sees what is really there. The use of this cannot be overstated and wizards are well known for noticing things others don't.
- Spells. A spell is, basically, a Gift that requires more energy. Except it's far more powerful. A spell of fire would include the use of light and illusions and could be reversed for ice and cold and the like. There are two kinds of spells: simple ones and complex ones. Simple ones (like opening spells) are easy to find and learn. Complex things like weather manipulation are fare rarer. A wizard starts out with 1d3+1 spells, each at 2d6. (You can get rid of a spell to increase another by 1d6, or the spell itself to d8 or d10.) Learning new spells is difficult and spells always drain energy.
- Items of power. An item has to be bought with dice, and can be used to cast spells quicker and channel energy. If the Wizards Spirit is exhausted, they can use the item, and then their own strength, the latter generally only up to 3 spells before a wizard drops dead from exhaustion.

Alchemy is the least regarded of the magia, mostly because the gods disapproved of it (some say because it's ability to transmute came close to theirs, but no one knows. Most alchemists try and turn lead into gold, and most manage to turn gold into less gold. A few believe that the real point is to imagine a world where such things are possible and to change yourself. For the most part, it's the practical every day things - inventing nails and such - that people prefer, but rulers of cities tend to build large factories and hire alchemists in the hopes of finding a new Power to replace the gods and the weakened wizardry in wars against foes.

Alchemy is very expensive, due to time and materials and the like. It's easy to do small things with, but any real magia, such as altering the Doctrine of something to make it something else for a time, or a potion to heal someone, requires a LOT of time and effort. True alchemy like wizardry, is not a hobby but more a way of life.

Channellers were those who could channel the gods. With the gods dead, the sensitives who become channellers go mad from the void where the gods were that devours their minds. Most of them spend their time in the ruined temples, believing they can hear the gods peaking - indeed, the word "ghost" was invented precisely for this phenomenon.

Despite the loss of sanity, channellers do have some uses still. They can channel energy and are pretty much immune to direct assaults from gifts and spells and are very sensitive to the use of the same, making them rather good bloodhounds for people on the warpath.

Gifts

Gifts are innate magic, an ability that one particular family has and no other one in the world does. Every branch of the family tends to be somewhat different, but all have the same goal of producing the most powerful gifts they can. Since gifts are weakened by outbreeding (most resulting children are nulls, the others weak gifts seldom worth bringing into the family), inbreeding - between cousins, incest and such - is the norm. Before the gods died, there were no problems in this. After they died, little things like birth defects and such began.

The result of this is that, slowly but surely, the gifted are dying out. There are fewer powerful gifts, and few of those are healthy, too many damaged children. The future doesn't look pretty, but there was a prophecy, though no one seems to recall much at all, and so several families have sent their best (not necessarily brightest) to an Inn in Estavia in the hopes of finding a future.

Mechanics

A gift is a Cliche. Fire, Earth, Swordsmanship etc. The powerful gifts are things of legend, and some of them can do really scary things in those legends. But few are born with truly powerful broad gifts in this age, and the world has changed. A gift can pretty much be used continuously for a few minutes before it gets tiring, but the cost of them is generally only in concentration rather than the physical exhaustion of wizards. Most gifts are used at all times at an unconscious level, like a Gift of water never needing a drink and such.

Keep in mind that gifts are NOT broad catchalls (that's what Wizards spells are). While some branches of a family can branch out - such as using water not to create /summon /manipulate but rather to suck water out of people, they do so at the expense of being less strong in the overall gift.

Family Life

As you may have gathered, the Gifted aren't normal families. While various branches vary, the stated goal of all of them is to produce powerful Gifts. IN many, this leads to pitting children against each other to see who is stronger or cruel tests to see how powerful people really are. Exactly how far this is taken vary from family to family and gift to gift. (For example, in Bremen where the gift is Command, people practice on others and only use their gifts on others of the family if making a bid for power, since the ruler of the country is whoever has the strongest Gift.)

Some families DO train hard: the Swordsmen, for example, are given swords before they can walk, taught how to use them as much as possible and, when they have some skill, fight each other to improve their skills. Adulthood involves a fight with others of the same age, and the survivors get to continue on, have children, and propagate the gift, thus ensuring the next generation will be stronger.

Since the amount of Gifted has been decreasing, many families have scaled back on the tests (or at least don't make them fatal) while other families have gone to the extreme of testing proficiency from birth. Exactly how your PC's family does it is up to you, but it's seldom pleasant. The Gifted know they're the only real defense if the wizards make a bit for power, and some take that to rather fanatical levels. And, of course, there is the prophecy...

The Local Area

The section of the world that has been mapped is, basically, close to the northern end of a much larger continent. There is another continent (the nation/empire of Vexil often being confused with it) to the west, another continent on the other side of the world and, to the south, there used to be one subtropical continent but the main part of the heavens crashed there and both were obliterated. Most people try not to think about that too much. Argon (ruins): The empire of Argon was one of the major trade routes to Vexil, but the demise of the gods destroyed a lot of sea travel and most of the empires around it. Damaged badly by civil wars in the following years, it's become a ghost city that almost no one travels to. Bellars: A small port city, Bellars has never been able to make a name for itself by, say, controlling trade up the Esta River, due to trade sanctions and wars by the more powerful (and connected) Estavia and Mellin. Despite being a city, it has yet to really be free, and attempts to ally with Karsha have often met in the death of diplomats and such. Bremen: One of the few empires to survive the fall of the gods unscathed, Bremen is an oddity on the continent, if not the world. It's run by a Family of Gifted with the ability to Command others, an ability that no other magic or gift comes close to duplicating. It amounts to royal authority, in practical terms, rather than convincing people to kill themselves or turning them into slaves (this was possible, once, but the royal blood has spread out a lot to insure survival so most people have some innate protection there).
Bremen is most famous for its profound antipathy towards magia; wizards were banished from it years ago (mostly moving north to Yree) and other Gifted are hunted down by the Hands, alchemical creatures who look like human spiders, hunt in packs, and are immune to gifts. As no other alchemy has come out of Bremen, some believe it's really the result of a gift, but the empire of Nakai has, in the past hundred years, produced its own Hands. Needless to say, Bremen isn't the kind of place you want to visit. Callard: An alchemist haven by default for many years, Callard is a large town that does very good trade in precious metals and ores from the mountains even though most of its own mines have been exhausted. The town gained some notoriety 100 years ago when, due to shady events that led to the death of the Lord's wife and a reputed wizard war, the town banned all wizards, gifted, and even most alchemists for over fifty years. This has lifted in recent years, but magia is still not very welcome there. Carlion Woods: Named after one of the older gods of the forest, these woods survived the destruction that obliterated cites and land around them and remain a pristine wilderness pretty much untouched by human hand ever since. Some believe that Carlion's final act was not to save himself, but the woods and that enough of the gods power touched it to protect it from harm. While no one is sure if this is true, attempts to make use of the forest have all failed in the years that followed, due to the lands traders had to travel through or other causes. Dead Lands: The dead lands aren't dead as much as a place of the undead. After the Death God Mors died and fell right by the Keep that had housed Channellers serving him, the energy unleashed warped the world and land, so that all dead who are not burned rise up as shambling undead creatures with their minds intact as they rot away, desperate for death but still, horribly, clinging to life. Esta Falls: Once an empire, Esta Falls was decimated in a series of brutal wars over several thousand years and is now just a town with lots of ruins around it. The people, broken in body and spirit, barely recall the glories it used to be and have no desire of reaching for them again. The threat of Mellin expanding into Esta Falls is the only thing that keeps it alive since Estavia maintains a large garrison of troops there. Esta River: Named after the river goddess (no relation, though), the river Esta has long been a source of trade and attempts to squeeze trade and prevent it from reaching empires and cities further along it have led to many long and bloody wars over the centuries. 800 years ago, during the last war between Mellin and Esta Falls, the water that reached Estatvia was literally red, Eastavia: A city famous (or infamous) for being a home to alchemists for many centuries. This allowed it to weather the demise of the gods rather well and the city has grown in power and stature since enough, enough that most trade from the mountains now funnels through it and Callard has become, for all intents and purposes, a satellite state. More information on Estavia is, of course, in the campaign section. Hallsworth: A small town that is only known because it was possibly destroyed by a wizard (or the plague) over as century ago. This has become its claim to fame, and most of the citizens go with the wizard theory and tours are offered as warnings against what wizards could become again. Despite this, the town employs quite a few wizards to show off these things and stage mock wizard wars and the like. The Keep: A fastness built to honour the death god Mors, the keep contained Channellers who channeled only that god and mediated between the mortal and divine for longer lives and the like. it is quite possible that those people are also undead, having been inundated so thoroughly by the power of the god when he died that they can never die. No one has ever been able to reach it to find out, and few wish to. Knolled Mountains: The mountain rage separating the northern end of the continent from the rest, the mountains go under many names, from the spine of the land to bones of the gods and other such appellations. The mountains are a steady supply of ore, though the demise of the gods makes travel into and through them difficult, and on occasion strange men made of living stone have come down from it to attack other places. Little is known of their interior and attempts to traverse them almost always fail. Magia Tower: A tower of wizardry that is still warded from all entrance and exit. Little is known about it, but many wizards have wet dreams over what could lie within it. Nakai Empire: This empire is still one, as far as is known. They keep to themselves and avoid much trade with other nations, so no one knows how hard it was hit by the destruction of the gods. Their creation of Hands has made them famous, but no one is sure what they intend to do with them, or what the Empires long term goals are. Many rulers would sleep better for knowing that. North Faelorn: A large empire on the north end of the Dol'din lake, North Faelorn has been at war with South Faelorn for so long that it's pretty much tradition and habit now. No one even knows what started their war or war, but both nations pretty much fight each other and ignore the rest of the world. Northport: A large port city that has become the default shipping port in the northern ocean since Bremen is not the most trusted place. While an economic power, Northport has never sought to make use of any political clout, possibly from fear of Bremen or simple pragmatism. Pirate Isles: These are islands where pirates used to make war upon trade vessels from. With the decrease in sea travel and trade they're become more havens for outlaws than anything else in recent memory. Plague Wall: A wall built two thousand years ago to prevent a plague in the Steppe lands from spreading, the wall has lost much of it's potency with the death of the gods but still serves as a reminder of things that come from the south. The blood mages who lived in the steppes area at the time were accused of making the plague (which the gods did not cure, curiously) and hunted to extinction for this. The blood mages since them claim that the steppes people manufactured the plague in order to wipe out the blood mages. South Faelorn: See North Faelorn. Steppes: A grazing stronghold for horses and cattle, the steppes are famous for some breeds of horse that somehow make blood magic almost ten times as effective as otherwise. As such, the steppes people have engaged in long wars with blood mages and are known for their elaborate tattooed bodies that provide some protection against magic and for being really efficient at killing wizards. The hero Cloud who helped battle the living stone from the mountains over 150 years ago came from the steppes, as do many other heroes. In fact, aside from animals, heroes tend to be its main export. Velt: A city known for it's underground lakes and rivers, Velt is a small empire that pretty much keeps to itself and trades with the villages in the northern arctic reaches of the continent. Yree: one of the newer empires, Yree has only been around for a scare thousand years and is known for its large number of wizards (many of them transplants from Bremen). It is the only empire in the north where wizards are relatively common, to the point that they breed for powerful wizards (the name Nast becoming their family name and title) as the gifted breed for stronger gifts. Though there has been no noticeable proof that wizardy can be bred for, the traits that make someone a good wizard do tend to pass from parent to child. The wizards of Yree are, wisely, not political and do not interfere in affairs of state. Honest.