Fantasy In Another World With An Info Dump

[Idea]

Yuessay
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Current Ruler: Origami
Location: Kingdom of Shivehrowl, center of Urium forest
Population Density: Low (60.12% human 34.37% Beastfolk 4.3% Elvish 1.2% Faery 0.01% Other races)
Primary Trades: Wood and botanic worldhole parts.
More Info: Yuessay is a small town built within the Urium forest. It isn't a remarkable town in any other regard than its origins and its unnusual tolerance for the beastfolk race. The majority of inhabitation withi Yuessay is comprised of wooden homes, and this is where the majority and poorest portion of the populace live. As one grows closer to the center of the city, where the guild hall is located, the homes gradually become more and more comprised of imported goods like stone, as does the road shift from dirt to stone. Even in those cases only the richest have furtiture made of anything but simple wood.

While the guild hall is arguably the most important location in the town, and for reasons of defense being located within the center of the town (and around it being other important buildings, such as the place for accomodating guests of major importance, the greater inn and the home of the town ruler), this portion of the town may be the richest but it isn't the center of Yuessay's commerce. The honor of that goes to the outmost layer of buildings still within the walls. This proximity allows better trade with adventurers, as it helps them bring in materials fresher and not dragged through town, plus such shops become a good place to stop after the exhaustion of doing quests.

While taller than what one could be expected to climb, the walls around Yuessay aren't particularly impressive. All they possessed is the standard magical protection that helps ward off monsters and repair the wall in case of damage.

Beyond the human and beastfolk populations, a few other races are also included in Yuessay. Most notable are the elves who inhabit the forest, but have come to be one of the few good relations the previous ruler actually managed to achieve without leaving the town with cripplingly skewed economic agreements. Next, the standard fairy inhabitants, made to serve in public maintenance, and finally the occasional visitor from a different and the couple of dwarven families that have come in invitation of the previous ruler.

The presence of these dwarves turned out to be of quite some significance. Sil and Krom had abysmally different approaches to their craft, but it was always undoubtable they were quite talented. And with such a talent in a town without other options for smithing, they could put a good price on what they sold. Only able to ever afford one, people began to divide until a couple of pseudo-factions arose "Kromians" and "Silians", depending on which of the smith's one employed. With either choice, one could expect scorn from the other side, and the level of fervor was often described by otherwolders as being "like fans of two different sports teams".

 

[Idea]

Euphorium's Understanding Of Magic
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While magic in Euphorium is guided by ultimately simple principles, its inner workings aren't truly understood by its people. Scholars and learneds of all kinds have attempted to dig deeper into magical knowledge and to understand the principles behind it, however while they have reached certain concepts, such as the inner self (the essence of oneself that orients magic and which worldholes lack), they lack the understanding of magic's unity through free will. As civilization develops more and more advanced forms of magic, Euphorium's understanding of it grows paradoxically smaller, due to the expectations around magic becoming further and further away from its roots. Furthermore, few even understand the meaning of rational magic anymore, after the oblivion wars wiped it and many other old forms of magic from the map.

With that said, the people of Euphorium do understand the dangers of abusing magic, the loss of will, insanity and potentially even death. Just from typical use of magical artifacts the average lifespan on Euphorium has circled around 45, even despite the vast array of healing facilities, though as the artifacts grow more efficient, this number is rising to approach 50.

Among the forgotten, if ever known, forms of magic is primal magic. As such, Euphorium peoples don't particularly see the many fantastic features of the world as a product of magic, but rather just as common features of the world- and in the case of worldholes, unnatural features. A person in Euphorium may understand that a certain plant has healing properties, but they will not identify those properties as being the result of magic. Likewise, why they are aware of monstrous animals, and self-risen undead etc... they do not see those as magical either, though they do recognize those disrupt the laws of nature. The most common way to tell what is classified as a worldhole is through two questions:
1) Does it move animalistically or like a human being?
2) Is it a threat to humanity?

Its for these reasons that elves and dwarves for instance are considered "derivatives", being with human ancestry that are no longer human, rather than worldholes. On the other hand, even the faeries and beastfolk that live among humans are considered worldholes, and thus have to accept living as second-class citzens or worse just to be able to live within the comfort/safety of human society.

Humanity is currently able to use two forms of magic primarily: Rational magic and artifact magic. Even so, rational magic is known only to the unnaturally old and some sages and scholars. While the knowledge of it is passed down, few are actually willing to put in the time that is required to learn not only formation but also the many symbols required for rational magic. Nevertheless, many rational magic symbols are passed down, even among the general populace, through artifact magic. Instead of directly applying the magic however, these people use their knowledge to mass produce "spell molds" which are placed into weapons and armor during the forging and broken off their handle after they are embedded into it. This places the spell directly into the armor, which allows the user to fuel it much more efficiently.
Some armor can be produced with the spells being directly crafted into it, but this is a truly Herculean feat virtually only royalty can ever begin to afford.

Among humanity a third kind of magic still occasionally finds a wielder, this being will magic. However, these exceptions are often short lived, not to mention abysmally rare.

 

[Idea]

Oblivion Wars and Otherwolder Summonings
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WIP

Over a century ago, Euphorium was involved in a civil war. According to historical accountings, the rulers at the time resisted the implimentation of the new forms of magic into their pratical teachings of magic, due to the antithetical nature of the new forms of magic to the methodologies of the past, which in turn put into question the legitimacy of the power and influence those figures wielded. Sensing the opportunity and the fragility of the human empires, surrounding intelligent worldholes became more active and engaged in what effectively became a pincer attack against humanity. While humanity was able to ultimately defend themselves, the anxiety created by those attacks only further escalated the internal conflict of humanity, in turn creating a far worse war that came to be known as the actual oblivion war.

Artifact magic users were more numerous and more efficient in their magic. The lack of diversity, innitially their greates weakness, was overcome as more and more different types of artifacts were developed, and as expert artifact magic combatants developed tactics that suited their artifact magic in a truly unique fashion, striking swiftly and mercilessly. As such, the old form magic users quickly went from having a mild upper hand, to being utterly crushed, and what was once war quickly delved into sheer abuse and carnage, in turn springing many old magic users to abandon their principles and develop more sinister spells and even allying with worldhole races.

The war's end came at the hands of beings too powerful for either of the sides to handle: The first otherwolders. One day, the sky flashed red, and lightning soared across the whole of Euphorium. No one knows who cast the grand spell that twisted the world so much that it would fail to stay separate from other worlds, and yet, it happened. The first summonings caused earthquakes and parted clouds and seas, and the summoned themselves were like titans in Euphorium: they was no physical comparison between them and even the dragons themselves. They each bore one and sometimes even more abilities, magic derived from the very world they were now in which was said to hold the power of several armies. Everyone wanted them on their side, but even fights among them could devastate last portions of land. The war itself was forced to stop just to appease and calm those enormous forces.

The original summoned have long since passed, and as the universe mends the render of the spell, the summonings have waned in their prior power. It is still undeniable that when an otherwolder is summoned, they WILL bring change with them. Some more, some less, but such is the influence of their mere existence.The world occasionally summons an otherwolder on their own, however some rituals have succeeded in the past in summoning an otherwolder. Current otherwolders come with a singular ability of extraordinary strength (though nothing compared to the otherwolders of old) and an ehanced physical trait.

The influence of otherwolders has undoubtedbly began to shift some values and ideas in Euphorium. Because of the nature of the summonings, however, summoned otherwolders rarely have any actual technical knowledge they can share, and instead tend more to influence culture and to some extenct the economy. Professions such as otherwolder seekers, inter-world translators and particular strands of daylight informants have all risen from the presence of otherwolders. They are, naturally, quite revered in Euphorium, for better or for worse, and more or less everyone is aware of their existence.

As such, methods for attempting to identify otherwolders have also been developed.

 

[Idea]

Language
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Euphorium hosts a set of different languages, which otherwolders are automatically able to understand and speak. Most of these languages are deriven from the same original human languages which mixed and got distorted over time, thus even today the languages sharing many similar words depending mostly on the region and specifically the sort of worldholes they typically encounter.

With that said, otherwolders aren't immediately able to read nor write the languages of Euphorium. Now, among humanity at least, there is a common written language. Though specific words may exist in only one or a couple of variations, written language is generally able to be interpreted. Written language in Euphorium is similar to hieroglyphs, utilizing symbols that depict the word being expressed or a related symbol based on some story or legend. This is the common language written in Euphorium, and the production of paper and writing was greatly accelarated thanks to this being the most effective means of communication due to it being shared by virtually all of humanity in Euphorium, to the point where even derivatives began teaching it to their young.

That said, two more languages exist which are spoken mostly by scholars and the wealthy. The first of them is known as "Willspeak", and it is based on an extreme simplifcation of the magic symbols from rational magic. It is a complicated, much less intuitive type of language than the common language, but it comes with a certain prestige, and it used to be known for the massive advantage it brought towards learning rational magic, being taught to write in this language.

The second of these languages is a mixture of japanese and english resulting from these being the two most commonly written languages from otherwolders. I say "written" not "spoken" because even if the otherwolders speak in their native languages it gets translated with or without their consent.