Shaterra

Shaterra is a setting for steam punk, fantasy where tech is ancient and magic has taken over. Shaterra is made up from several free floating shards of a planet which are in a spheric shape. Some shards are closer to the center than others though. Some Astrologers claim that the number of shards is thirteen while others argue that the true number is seventeen depending on what the size requirement for a shard is. What they all agree on is that there are many smaller shard islands floating around between, above and below the main shards which make up the shard world. Shaterra used to be a very high tech society but The Shattering made an end of that and when the population saw their entire society crumbling, they started turning to the arcane arts. Back in the Age of Technology, the shards were aligned and most people were unaware that they were not one giant shard. Then the Shattering happened. Some say it was a divine battle for the Shards, some say that man became too arrogant and unleashed it on ourselves whatever the reason, the shards and they fell apart in a cataclysmic event, drifting around the core Void for years. Some in the Shattering, research facilities crumbled and billions of nano-robots were unleashed, destroying almost all the technology of Shaterra . Since then, people turned to the arcane arts and forgot not to make Technology but some remnants still remain like The Tech which floats around the shards in the sky, independant of The Sun Sphere and The Moon. The freely floating Shards, however, were a problem for many ages until powerful wizards practiced great feats of magic to stabalize them and put up barriers around them so they dont collide. For a few years, wizards were able to steer the shards and anchor them in place but the Technology soon broke down making it virtually impossible without sacrificing many prominent wizards. Rocks are very prized possessions, often engraved with runes and charms to make them more potent in combat. There are very few rocks on the Shards because the shards themselves are extremely hard to mine and fabricate anything from. Some ancient technological weapons still exist but are highly prized though but people use swords, spears, axes and other weapons made from smelted down old tech before it became scarce. Since mining is not possible on the tough shard world, metal is rather valuable and therefore only officials, soldiers, guards, traders and nobles are able to afford it. Resently though, a new breed of people have arisen. Where the notion before was that the Shards were sacred and should not be invaded, adventurers have started exploring the insides of the Shards they enter the cracks made by old collisions and explore caves beset by void beings, mutants and psionics. Some even say that there are old storages from the Age of Technology down there, just waiting to be found. If this is true then certainly, they may be protected by animatrons of old, automated arcane Tech or perhaps even Void Beings. Other adventurers have started exploring metallic beings found on the fringes of some of the Shards. They have no faces and glow with magic inside their tech. It is said that anyone touching them are found dead later and that they seem to change places and unearth their own kind buried in the Shards. Society is often, outside of the metropolices, clean and looks pedantic since all the waste is disposed of by throwing it out over the edge of the shards so it falls into the grativational center where the Void is located. Shards closer to this Void have started mutating. Wierd things happen down there, people mutate into "shard races" or develop psionic abilities. These shard races and mutants are severely frowned upon in regular society as they are seen as unclean. Any member of a Shard Race who takes residence on a Shard can be sure to be forcefully castrated and shunned by the inhabitants to ensure that no Shard Race will develop on the surface Shards. Official magic is strongly ritualized and religion is different between gatherings of shards. The religions include The Toaders, The Church of Tech, The Rationalists and the Void Shaders. On some shards, Toaders worship a giant toad with spinning eyes. It is common to keep small toad charms for personal worship and very wealthy people keep live toads in luxourious gilded cages. It is taboo to touch the live toads but some inhabitants of the shards lick the frogs occationally to gain a temporary magical energy boost - usually for the dark arts they practice. Noone knows from where the Toad originated, where it is supposedly located or how man learned of its existance. Some say it is Of the Void and as such, man should work with magic to draw all shards back into the Void to achieve Unity once more. Others see it as mans holy duty to drive the Shards even further away from the Void because they see the seperation of the Void and the Shards as divine will and therefore as something humans must adheir to. Toaders final wish is to be thrown into the void and the greatest and most noble death of all is to willingly throw yourself over the edge so that you may become one with the Void. However, only when you have achieved sufficient wisdom

can you ever hope to truely understand the connection with the Void so only Toaders close to dying of old age are considered worthy to practice this ceremony. Other Shard Dwellers, known as The Rationalists, frown upon religion and belive it to be nonsense, non scientific mumbo jumbo with no evidence which is why they only stick to old reliable magic. Old Tech also seems unreliable and, unless you have a special permit from The Council of Elders, all tech is forbidden to own. Such a permit is only obtainable by handing in the tech and let the Council investigate it throughly. Arcane rites are performed, inscence burned and scrying is performed on the item to make sure that its inner workings are based on magic and not tech before it is allowed out into the hands of whomever found it. Some whisper that there is a group of the Rationalists who go by the name of Truth Seekers who believe that the downfall of technology have been what sparked the comming of magic. These Truth Seekers supposedly look through every old scroll, old musty tomb and even digital archives for clues about magic being the inner being of technology. Surely, if this was true though, they would have a vast network of contacts to keep their workings hidden and Grand Archmage Toberlinus, the religious order of the Rationalists, would have sent assassins after these heretics. The third general fraction worships the Shards themselves, believing that the Shards are the balance of the world and a physical symbol of what we know while the Void is the unknown that which must be discovered. Some of these Void Sharders even form dooms day cults who practice mass suicides in order to speed up their travel to the Void. Other Void Sharders look to the heavens instead and worship The Tech as the paradise while the Void is oblivion some of these cults are rumored to have mounted expiditions by means of magical transport to explore The Tech. The final major religion on Shaterra is the Church of Tech. They believe that Technology was the rightful enheritence of their forefathers and that all magic is heresy against the migthy law of logic. Its members often use The Tech in the heavens as the physical manifestation of what they worship when doing their daily routines. The prophesy says that one day, man will find a way to go to The Tech and that shall be their final inheritance man shall gather the Shards, return to the old ways and finally ascend into the heavens and unto The Tech from where they can finally destroy the source of forgetfulness: The Void, in the center of the Shards. To fall into the Void is to be forgotten and to be refused your ancestral right to Tech and therefore the worst fate possible. Some fractions of The Church of Tech believe that the right way to the ways of old is to gather the Shards first, then ascend to The Tech to destroy The Void while others see the Shards as the punishment laid down by the ancesters and instead try and go directly to the Tech. Since old tech is extremely expensive, mostly very rich people actively worship The Church of Tech. In those regions though, magic is considered an utter abomination and any person caught practicing wizardry to ease their burden of work is executed for malicious practice of the Dark Arts. Rumers say though, that some members of the Church of Tech have started exploring the use of magic to bring together the Shards. General culture on Shaterra is based on feudal Minister commanding each a small city state. Most city states band together under a single ruler and it is most often based on Shard location and religious views. In case of war, each Minister is asked to provide a number of soldiers for the army, wizards to summon flying void beasts for transport, astrologers to determine when Shards are close enough for hovering or gliding through the air or Mechanists to prepare and operate the great machines of war. The normal population with with a host of different aspects of daily life. Void Fishers travel to the Edge of the Shards and catch rift fish who swim in the aether between the Shards, hunters travel the wilderness on the Shard where they live and catch void beasts, Farmers cultivate the soft parts of the Shards, Tanners make hides into leather, Lakesters travel from lake to lake to collect moss, algae, mushrooms, small sea creatures and other nutricious food. Blacksmiths, mining being impossible or outlawed, work my smelting down old metal and creating new items from it. Many a piece of old non-functioning tech have found its way to the smelting pot of the Blacksmiths of the Shards. Arcanists assist others in casting their spells if nessecary and are often employed by the Ministers. On some shards, a new trade has resently had rise: Maratae these people act as willing sacrifices of blood, life essense and what else a wizard may have use for. They are regarded with mistrust but even so, it is hard to find willing sacrifices like this so it is well paid and due to the scarcety of their profession, those who hire them often take good care not to have them end up dead. Needless to say, Maratae are widely mistrusted and many people try and hide the fact that they work as Maratae. And then there are the Astrologers, Wizards and Mechanists. These are some of the highest regarded intellectuals of Shaterra . Astrologers practice a mix between tech and magic to determine the shards movements compared to eachothers, they were the ones responsible for the anchoring and shielding of the shards in the days of old and they are often assigned by their Minister as navigators of the Shard for trade or

war. Wizards are the controllers of magic and magical affairs. They are often hired to shield the shard continents from the Void, making it harder for Void Beasts to manifest in large numbers and they are employed in war time to create magical bridges for armies to travel on. Mechanists care for the old tech and refuse the magical arts. They are often caring for the tech of their liege and they help manage the great war machines while instructing and building the war gliders used when travelling between nearby shard continents. Culturally and ecologically, the shard continents of Shaterra are very diverse. Some have natural snow, ice and glaziers, others have hot desert and others are temperate forest continents. The continents environment often have great influence on how societies are build some places have largely nomadic tribes with only a few major cities while others are massive agricultural societies. Most of the continents are relatively dry temperate zones with scattered forests and almost all of the continents have old ruins of factories and other pre-Shattering facilities which are often held in high regard by the Church of Tech. Places where old technological facilities were relatively whole and not guarded by too many automatrons, great communities have sprung up, inspired by the technology of old and magic, giant metropolises have been formed which each have their share of guilds, societies, private companies and rivalling gangs. In these metropolises, there will often be several Ministers supervising the area and they will often form councils and compete with each other for influence and wealth. However, even though most of the laws have been set by the Ministers, it is rare that they are followed to the letter and instead, guards and soldiers are tasked by their officers to just keep the streets decent. One of the corner stones of Sharterrian culture is the discovery that pieces of shard can flow through the air. This have made small pieces of the continental shards extremely valuable as they are used to make lifts in high buildings, small personal floating mounts for the rich and powerful and even small airplanes have been sighted. The amount of continental shard nessecary is, however, primarily based on height rather than weight which makes flying contraptions extremely expensive to make. This has given rise to the many floating ships mostly used by city states and smaller continents for contact to the other shards. But with trade routes and ships sailing on the invisible energy of the Void, so came pirates. Small bands of brigandeers who sail through the ether between the giant shard continents, rob travelling caravans and convoys and live off the spoils. All major shard continents are against piracy and their military has a strict shoot-on-sight policy but lords and ministers also hire pirates to rob or disturb the trade routes used by rivals. Fueled by the lust for Shard Stones, precious metals and algae rum, Void Pirates live an eventful and, for the most part, short life. Some of the countries on the Shard Continents use these vessels for war as well but due to their very expensive nature, most countries use contraptions similar to wind gliders to transport their armies. It is said that the populations of lower hangind shards can see the gliders and it is as if day becomes night for the hours used in the transportation of troops. Some anchient and crumbling recordings that only the upper echelon of Kharvis and Gheriton even know the existance of, tell of great flying machines given sentience and intelligence, while retaining the trait of loyalty from earlier "generations" of these things. To the regular folk, they are the void-demons, half myth, half legend, but to the ones who are privy to the secrets of the Shattering, they are the last completly functioning remnants of the age of technology, ruthlessly carrying out their last orders; endlessly patroling the borders of countries that for untold centuries have been non-existant, and exacting a terrible vengance upon those it deems are tresspassers. Over time, these machines gained, from the seed of metallic sentience, a personallity and a voice. Still chained to the final orders, they can only observe those on the shards, perhaps manipulating or even transporting some of the more devolved peoples into attacking the shards that have remade a semblance of civilisation. These technological demons vary greatly between one to the next, with all having to enact repairs on themselves with whatever materials they can find. Materials such as fragments of old tech many generations ago, but now even the garbage that has been thrown from the edge of the void is treasured by the larger creatures, and fought over mindlessly by the smaller ones. Some are little more than mindless, devolved beasts, having sacrificed or had damaged their higher functions, recycling organic material and creating even further devolved void-beings, commonly known as void-fish. These beasts can sometimes band together in great numbers, puncturing through the great sheilds protecting a shard to cause havok and chaos. The ones that have survived with their intelligence more or less intact throughout the ages are fearsome creatures, having gradually upgrading the weaponry that is all but useless alone against the magically protected shards, but devastating against any transport sailing between. These are the ones who have been manipulating the other races, and indeed, even each other.