The
Nameless World is unfathomably old. Thousands of empires have risen, fallen,
and been ground to dust by eons of time and conquest. Most of the mainstream
religious cults don’t even bother with creation myths. The very idea of a time
before the world strikes most philosophers and scholars as patently ludicrous.
These
self-same academics believe that the Nameless World lies at the center of all
things—not just the material universe, but of all planes of existence. How else
can one explain a world both besieged by demons from below and confounded by
angels from on high? The numerous and vermiform alien beings that bubble up
from the shadows and unseen corners of space lend credence to this theory as
well.
Most
people will tell you that the Nameless World has four moons. Those people are
wrong. The world has no satellites, and what most people call moons are, in
fact, planets. The Nameless Worlds and its four sister planets orbit in such
close proximity to each other that from the surface of each, the other planets
seem as large as the moon does on our own world. These orbits are erratic and
unpredictable, and only the most dedicated and mathematically-savvy of
astrologers can predict their movements and appearance with any degree of
accuracy. Certainly, the cosmological influence of so many planetary bodies in
such close proximity has some influence of inherently magical nature of the
Nameless World. The four “moons” are Nibiru (home world of the Elves), Erebos
(the undead moon), Halakim (where angles live), and Lykos (the
wolf moon).
Phlogiston Pollution
The
world teeters on the edge of a unique form of environmental devastation. As any
wizard will tell you, magic originates as phlogistonic energy channeled from
the Thaumic Plane and shaped into spells through the synaptic patterns burned
into the brains of trained sorcerers. Even the smallest of spells dumps large
amounts of phlogiston into the environment. Trace amounts of this alien energy
linger long after the spell is cast. Residual phlogiston is rarely detectable
or harmful to living things, but over centuries, thaumic residue begins to pool
together, forming sumps and sinkholes of dangerous magical energy. These
phlogistonic cysts cause environmental corruption, spawn alien monstrosities,
and weaken the barriers between worlds. Ecologically minded wizards blame the
increase in monsters and dimensional incursions over the past several decades
to this thaumic pollution. Very few sorcerers are willing to make the
personal sacrifices required to reduce this global corruption.
Sometimes these pools of magical fallout coalesce and mineralize into weird purple-green ore, somewhere between crystal and metal. It has a slightly waxy texture and glows dimly like a blacklight. Sorcerers call this mineral thaumalite, although wizards on some worlds know it as compound-N, nibirulith, or mutanto. Thaumalite can be used to empower spells, at the cost of greatly increasing the chance of fallout and corruption.
System:
A fist-sized chunk of thaumalite grants a wizard or elf +1d10 to
their spellcasting roll. After used this way, the bonus die drops one size as
the chunk’s mass boils away.
There
are several dangers associated with thaumalite. Merely carrying the
mineral on one’s person gives them a -5 to all saves against mutation,
corruption, or transformation.
Additionally,
when using thaumalite to boost a spellcasting roll, the chance of magical
mishap is greatly increased. If a spellcaster uses thaumalite to boost their roll, a failure is treated as a 1, with all associated dangers. If the bonus die comes up as a 1 but the
spell roll still succeeds, then the spell is cast and is not lost, but the
caster suffers the “or worse” consequences in the “1” section of the spell
(misfire, corruption, or patron taint).
