Magic & Technology

All magical practices draw their power from the Shroud, a natural force which underpins reality. The Shroud permeates all things in the world - it helps the trees grow strong, the winds stir, the clouds to gather and the lightning strike to start a flame. Each culture has developed their own understanding of the Shroud, their own systems and teachings around it, but they all play off the same force. Only a handful of people have the potential to become shroudweavers - those that study magic and draw energy from the Shroud to cast spells. And from that number, not everyone who has the potential ends up becoming a weaver. Like any other art, mastery takes decades of practice and experience, with some disciplines of weaving being harder...

In a world pervaded by the Shroud, the use and practice of magic are inexorably linked to the technologies found across the land. Difficult to craft and expensive to maintain, magitech items are often treasured as keepsakes and heirlooms. However, some more common artifacts see everyday use. Contraptions like a cookfire-ring, used by savvy adventurers, might be easy to find forgotten on well-traveled roads. With runes etched carefully into copper, silver, or gold, waiting to catch the Shroud woven by an apprentice weaver, or fed by a resonant shroud-stone. Just as one might spot a skimmer craft, set to propulsion by a crystal-fueled resonance engine, its wing-sails full of wind, and its lift-balloon carrying its wooden hull off the...

A ring system of crystal meteors and mineral dust belts across the sky, glimmering inspiration of many a myth. There is a different name for these rings in every culture, and many believe them to be a visual representation of the Shroud. Regardless of belief, the celestial elements from the rings oft rain down upon the land in meteorological events. And these elements have magical effects not found anywhere else on the planet. Shroud stones - Also known as Mother shards, and often simply called shards, shroud stones are the most common element which falls from the sky. Meteor showers were once more common, and large deposits are often found in the desert and Boiling Sea. Shroud-stones are crystals which have the unique ability to...

Extremely rare, Fiend Hearts are shroud stones corrupted by the Blight. Sometimes found amidst purged Blight thickets, sometimes made through heretical ritual or process, these strange artifacts are deemed ineffable by every sect of conventional society, as the potential harm they carry is profound. This has not stopped the pursuit to wield their power. From pauper to prince, stories and historical records detail accounts where fortune turned and fate twisted, once upon a bleeding black stone. The dwarves tell tales that pray all who hear: let the Deepstones lie. Whilst amidst the sands of the Kaikias, whispers around fires in the cool of twilight warn the young to walk with care about the Tears Between Night. In places of learning...

“Was a horrible thing, an evil thing. A thing born from all the swirl of madness we bring to those killing fields. It cared not for friend or foe. Bancroft or Larodan, its blade chopped them down all the same, like lambs on butcherin day, and it didn’ matter how many bolts we put into the damn thing, it just kept churnin through,” - Minli, a survivor’s account as scribed by Syr Halonquin Appearance When first manifest, an Iron Revenant appears like any other soldier encased in full armor, though a dark mist, like iron powder, has been recorded by survivors of encounters with these entities. It is with time that the war gheists change. Growing different as they enact violence and sow death across the mortal plain. Their shapes twist...

More commonly referred to as demons, Shroud Fiends are anomalous beings spawned from the Shroud itself. Thought to express the psychic essence of mortality, Shroud Fiends are regarded with great prudence, if not outright prejudice by the world at large. Often seen as wholly evil, things spawned from moral depravity, and wanton sin, the truth is not so simple. How Shroud Fiends come to be is uncertain, and the line between Shroud Fiend, Shroud Beast, and Spirit is thin. Where this line begins and ends, if one could even fathom such a thing, is a matter of debate that cuts across Khurun. Where a Spirit might embody the wind or the currents of a great river, a Shroud Fiend may embody something closer to mortality. Lust, rage, logic...

An anomalous manifestation of the world, Blight, lies all across the lands of Khurun. Behaving much like a weed, blight grows rampant in the right conditions, and has been observed to feed on the Shroud itself. While its exact origins are a mystery, the conditions wherein it is found follow an observable pattern. Places of great tragedy and turmoil are often marred by the abyssal roots of blight brambles. Infestations of blight growth have been known to sprawl about the remnants of old battlefields, and upon the lands of guardian spirits long slain. Whether these are the root sources of the blight, or simply where the growths have been drawn to, is a matter of debate. It is common knowledge that a Blight growth can despoil the earth...