Glossary of Terms

The Age of Peers: Approximately 4200 years before Muiriac. It was a time of great knowledge. Many advances were made in the myriad disciplines of magic, and this age in time gave the schools of Band of Peers their namesake as the greatest storehouses of magical skill and sorcerous prowess in the known world. Libraries were constructed and filled with tomes of power and ken the likes of which have yet to be equaled by modern efforts. Many such tomes of arcane erudition were destroyed millennia later with the coming of the Endbeast, but those few that remain are cherished documents, kept secret from all but the descendants of the Peers and Mentors themselves. The level of tech, and the architectural style in the Age of Peers is comparable to the Gothic era in our world.

Archon: The Archon is a disembodied consciousness of properties unknown, spawned to ensure order within the halls of governance. Nobody really knows what the Archon is, but it sure as hell ensures order. You fuck with it, you disappear. For the purposes of fair and enjoyable gaming within the Guilds of Empyrean Fates, the Archon is a moderating force, used to restore balance when things get out of hand. This is not really expected to happen, but if it does.... Oh, if it does…

The Bands: Ringing the Volias continent are four Bands of encircling Island continents. These once held unified purposes under the Mesa’s rule in pre-Apocalypse times, but now are largely abandoned, or occupied by different factions of the Underworld, for different purposes.

The Boundless Sea: Beyond the last Band of the known world lies nothing but unfathomably deep water, in every direction, darkening into eternity beyond the horizon.

Empyrean: This smooth, shiny black rock looks and feels quite similar to polished obsidian, but it is virtually immune to every test of science, magic, or brute force that has been put to it. Nothing tarnishes its glossy surface, and absolutely nothing, in the history of the world according to mankind, has ever even so much as dented it. It has been an ever-present part of the geographical formations of the known world since long before the beginning of mankind, and many cultures believe it to be planted by an alien species, as it seems so incongruous with the rest of the environment.

Guild: There are 128 Guilds, each ruled by a Guild Sovereign. The Sovereigns comprise the ruling body, the Mesa. The Guilds occupy the Empyrean Cluster that dominates the centre of the main continent, and maintain power through order, diligent research, and continuous efforts to thwart the Gangs of the Underworld.

Guildspire: A Guildspire is one great, hollow cylinder of Empyrean, housing one of the Guilds.

Haze: An addictive drug first synthesized by some subversive elements within the Pharmicker's Guild a few years back. It is now a common street drug, characterized by extreme mental addiction, and an 8 to 12 hour high. It makes the user aggressive, delusional, and often extremely euphoric. It can also be heavily hallucinogenic.

House: A House is a powerful family within a Guild, which has gained the recognition of the Guild Sovereign, and is often represented at the Mesa.

Mesa: The Mesa is a governing body made up of a council of the One Hundred Twenty-Eight Guild Sovereigns, and the Archon. The Mesa is a term also used to refer to the giant Empyrean dome that tops the Guildspires and connects them all, high above the cloudline.

Muiriac The Endbeast: A great leviathan sea snake that rose out of the Boundless Sea in ages past and brought the Apocalypse to the Volias Megatropolis. It was forty miles long, and its maw spanned a full mile.

Pitch: The Empyrean Fates version of oil, it is a fossil fuel that was used millennia ago across most of Volias. Greener energies have made it obsolete as a fuel in all but the most desperate quarters of the Underworld, but it still has some useful and intriguing alchemical properties that make its harvest worthwhile.

The Rebellion of Pity: When Muiriac the Endbeast struck, the Mesa decided, by popular majority, to seal off the Empyrean Cluster and wait out the serpent, letting it destroy and ravish the rest of human existence beyond the Guildspires. But the Guilds that voted against this decision rebelled, and were cast out of the Cluster, their Guilds dissolved and their assets repossessed. 72 Guilds were cast out en masse, literally billions of citizens, nobles, and Mesa members, and it was they that led the victory against the Endbeast, and helped rebuild civilization outside of the Cluster in what was now known to the Mesa as the Underworld.

Ride-motor: The EF term for car, truck, van, motorcycle, etc.

Sanguian: The capital city of the Underworld. It is a seething pit of sin and vice, sired over by the Righteous Assholes, the kingpins of the Underworld. The diMera family has led the Righteous Assholes for centuries, and their iron grip on the capital has never loosened. Similar to the Archon, the diMera’s power is used in the setting as a safeguard against PC madness overthrowing the boards.

Sun Tech: An umbrella term for the vast array of technologies being developed around the Sun Canisters and Sun Stations of the Gloaming Quarters. Most of them focus on alterations of the Sun Canisters to make weaponry and tools.

The Tainting: Following the Apocalypse, the slain Endbeast’s blood seeped into the soil, the plants, the animals, and the city, causing wild magical mutations to occur. These mutations continue genetically through the life cycles of the world today, and can take any shape. Inanimate objects, magically enhanced by the Tainting are sought-after items, dubbed “Tainted Objects”. The new races and forms of life spawned by the Tainting are called “The Changed”.

Volias Megatropolis: A city-state spanning an entire continent, once the nexus of the known world, now called the Underworld, ruined by the apocalyptic Endbeast, and half-enshrouded by the great shadow of the Guildspire Cluster at its centre.

White Gunmetal: One of the most valuable precious metals of the known world. It continues to serve as the highest form of currency in both the Cluster and the Underworld, even after the times of unified world government. In the early years after the Apocalypse, the shattered and divided Underworld’s only real use for the stuff was in clandestine dealings with the Guilds, but over time, the Underworld Gangs reached a sort of unspoken consensus in allowing the metal to once again act as the predominant currency.