The World of Escarnum

Skies of Adventure

Floating far above the surface of the world, mysterious crystals known as escarnum await those bold enough to claim them. Infused with tremendous arcane energy, escarnum is the key to powering precursor relics—and developing new devices in their image. The crystals are amongst the most sought-after resources in the world, and various trade cartels wage daily economic wars for the right to harvest and sell them.

Gathering escarnum, though, is a challenging and costly practice. Funded by enterprising kingdoms or wealthy private interests, crews of daring sailors traverse the skies in whatever vessels they can acquire, hoping to strike upon the mother lode that will bring them fame and fortune. Competing with vicious sky pirates and airborne beasts—as well as each other—are your characters willing to brave the Skies of Escarnum?

The Ancient Future

Wherever they go, adventurers in Escarnum can discover strange relics that serve as the legacy of an ancient civilisation, the precursors. Far advanced in their knowledge of both magic and science, the precursors combined both to create incredible items whose secrets are now lost to the world. Most such relics are buried deep beneath the surface of the world, or concentrated on the continent of Aethys, and it was the kobolds who first began to discover and experiment with them.

Many relics are still a mystery to modern races, and more still are long-since broken. However, as engineering and magic advance once more amongst the peoples of Alm, their understanding of these powerful devices also deepens. As adventurers in the age of humanity, your characters have the chance to seek out and recover devices most people only dream about—and maybe even to be amongst the first to discover their true purpose.

A Godless Sky

For all its mystery and magic, perhaps the most surprising trait of Escarnum is this: it is a world wholly without gods.

Powerful astral beings abound, both celestial and infernal. Ideological orders and zealous cults are hardly unknown, and some even have convinced entire nations to worship them. But the fact remains: in this world, nothing exists that is rightly called a god. One might similarly expect divine magic to be absent from the world, but this could not be further from the truth. In fact, divine magic thrives, found even in those who have scarcely heard of gods, much less petitioned them directly.

Thus the truth of divinity in this world becomes clear; it is not granted to mortals, but born of them. Divine magic—the will to alter reality itself—is not granted in exchange for worship, but manifested though personal conviction.

In this world, every soul who commands divine power is nothing short of an avatar of their own beliefs—whether for good ends, or for evil.

Career Adventuring

“Adventurer” isn’t just a game term, but a well-known—if perhaps reckless—career choice. Since the Age of Empires came to an end, the massive booms in relic hunting and escarnum gathering have fuelled demand for unique and diverse explorers with equally unique and diverse combat skills.

Of course, where there is money there is exploitation. Many merchant companies seek to take advantage of would-be adventurers—saving on expenses by providing shoddy equipment, downplaying the danger of risky jobs, and generally treating them as expendable.

Many adventurers began to form parties—small groups who learned to work together more effectively, and could only be hired as a team. This was surely safer than acting as a solitary adventurer, but a party still had no real leverage against a larger company. Thus, parties quickly led to guilds—a union of adventurers who agreed to cooperate and support one another’s welfare under a common charter.

Guilds proved to be the winning strategy for Almish adventurers. Companies who tried to exploit their hirelings would find themselves blacklisted, unable to recruit any but the most shady agents. And while individual guilds were still in competition—just as their members were in competition with one other—they could form agreements to ensure that competition stayed healthy. The largest even formed cross-border alliances, so one guild could trust another to provide aid and support to their members abroad, with the understanding they would receive the same in turn.

Today, the system supports countless guilds across Alm, in almost every nation. Whether a guild has thousands of members, or barely enough novices for one party, they can count on basic resources and emergency aid nearly anywhere on the continent.

Industrial Magic

The land of Alm is a strange and beautiful place, shaped equally by magic and science. Indeed, there is little difference between the two; with the extraordinary power source of escarnum in plentiful supply, magical devices have become a part of every big city’s infrastructure. To most people, the magic in their street lamps and cooling chests is certainly more valuable than the magic of a fireball.

Magic also plays a big role in production, with low-level creation rituals employed to ensure an abundant supply of almost any mundane item. Such goods are typically of mediocre quality—spellcasters are rarely dedicated artisans or chefs themselves—but they serve well enough for everyday purposes. Thus, stable populations rarely find themselves desperate for any staple goods—except where a selfish actor tries to exert control over such supply.

This is not to say that magic is dull in Escarnum—merely that it is everywhere, an inextricable part of science and engineering. While your wizard battles a zombie horde, your less adventurous peers are designing airships and maintaining power lines—at least, the lucky ones who didn’t wind up in Independence as sanitation technicians.

As for the truly unscrupulous, have they told you about the incredible opportunity to invest all their gold into “aether coins” ™?