Welcome to Terra Firma
An introduction to the Crystalpunk setting and GLOGhack from the Various and Sundered Items blog.
Peer beneath the shattered glass of the upper Firmament where the angels dwell and see the Colonnades, a misty world where island-pillars rise like trees from an eternal fog and daring aeronauts ply their trade by humming crystalcraft. Here the avarice of expansion and industry collides violently with the monstrous haunts of Donjon caverns, the mist-coursing gargantua of Deep Abysm, and - most predictably - with itself.
A History in Brief
Sacred texts detail - though not with the precision or scientific uniformity modern man would like - the cataclysm of ancient days wherein Providence shattered the crystal firmament where angels dwell, judging the ancient rebellion of mankind by obliterating the pax of his domain and opening the horror-prisons of Deep Abysm in a single fell blow. The rest of the details vary from text to text. This is the primeval history of the Colonnades.
History books tell a later story, detailing the earliest explorations of the Donjon world beneath the surface of the Capitoline, the godlike authorities of the wizard kings, and the eventual discovery of refined firmament in the pearls of a certain species of oyster-barnacle. Then came the Upsetting: the invention of the first crystalcraft, the development of the first crystal weapons, and the revolt against the magocracy. The world would never be the same.
Today is the Age of Flowering - so the noblemen and philosophers say - when mankind will at last spread over the face of the world and come to rule all things below the firmament. There will be challenges, but the taste of glory is too sweet, the prize of riches too shining, and the allure of discovery too insistent. So they gather all to ply the misty sea and plumb the Donjon depths for power and prestige as the humming crystal engine of industrialization churns to life. The horizon stretches in every direction.
The Rings of the World
There are six realms that touch the mortal sphere like concentric rings, and one that theologians, philosophers, and wizards debate. This seventh is the Divine Realm, and it is beyond the scope of this document. It is the realm of Providence, Who orders all things. It is substrate, background, and foreground to all else, and is the immediate and mediated source of all things called “magic”. Of these things we shall not now speak in detail. Here we shall consider the other six.
Deep Heaven
The realm of cosmic forces. The stars live here, and many say it was they who hurled Providence’s bolt of judgement to shatter all things below. From time to time, stars from Deep Heaven have been said to visit mankind, and there are many who worship these primordial entities. Most are content to remain in their orbits, guiding skyfarers with their twinkling radiance. Here also lives the Sun, which some say is a star (though it has never visited), and the Moon, which most say is not (though it has).
The Firmament
The home of angels. It was once a flawless crystal shell over the whole world, but that was thousands of years ago. Now shattered into a thousand refracting archipelagos, it drifts miles above the Capitoline, at the furthest reaches of Open Sky. With magic, or a very strong telescope, you can see angels singing and dancing on the surface of these translucent islands. They are beyond the reach of any ordinary storm cloud, but a few daring adventurers have already begun plotting ways to ascend to this sacred realm.
Open Sky
The territory of the winged, bordered irregularly on its lower edge by an asteroid field of free-floating terra firmamenta crystals. Dragons lair here, their thrumming sub-vocalizations corralling a lattice of terra firmamenta to hold them aloft as they rest. The fastest trade routes course through Open Sky, but bandits and buccaneers are always watching for an exposed craft or overextended convoy. Ace pilots and armed escort ships are always in demand.
The Capitoline
Where the vast bulk of civilized and semi-civilized life can be found. Mankind dwells on the capitals of the titanic columns of the Colonnades that rise above the Mist Sea, building great port-cities on the largest of them, but even the smallest are often home to cottage industries, wizard laboratories, or the abodes of disagreeable hermits. Where the columns lie close together, their gaps are spanned by anything from rope bridges to crystal-assisted gondolas, but when distant other tools must be employed: winged beasts, crystalcraft, magic, or even Demisect portals.
The Donjon
Below the surface of the Capitoline, each column is riddled with criss-crossing perforations that are home to their own unique and dangerous ecosystems. They are referred to collectively as the Donjon, and are the only known source of terra spectra - the variform arcane crystals that have become ubiquitous in Capitoline societies. The retrieval of these crystals is a dangerous affair, as the Donjon’s inhabitants are hostile to invaders from the surface and quite capable of defending their territory. Names like Dire Mole, Feather of Abysm, and Terra Vitae inspire dread even in the hearts of the most seasoned spelunkers. The Donjon also runs well below the Capitoline into the Mist Sea towards Deep Abysm where nameless horrors haunt the ever-darkening tunnels, and only the prospect of untapped clusters of terra spectra crystal drives fearful miners on.
Deep Abysm
Outside the relative safety of the Columns and well below the surface of the Mist Sea, the fog thickens. Here, where a man can hardly see the fingertips of his outstretched arm on a sunny day, great buoyant Leviathans slip quietly through the darkness, hundred-foot-long undulating tendrils guiding them where mortal eyes fail, shepherding their cavernous mouths to hapless prey. Here, it is said, demons gnaw at the roots of the ancient pillars, plotting devastating opposition to the Providence-blessed world above. Even so, there are foolhardy souls who plot expeditions, stockpile rations, and amass weapons to siege these accursed lowlands, confident that earth’s greatest riches must surely be those closest to its heart.
Columns of the Colonnades
Though no two columns are identical, the geographers of the Colonnades have classified the great stone pillars that make up the habitable region of their world, naming them in the process.
Spindles. So-named for their delicate yet towering appearance. These high-rising columns are barely large enough for a cottage, but are often home to an eclectic assortment of specialized flora and fauna that can take unique advantage of the limited space to avoid competition. Often topped by small shrines or religious monuments. Spindles are common.
Stacks. Named after chimneys - smokestacks. These mid-height columns are large enough for a hamlet or compound. They are the most abundant class of column, and their inhabitants are usually either subsistence farmers and fishers or all practitioners of the name specific trade.
Clacks. Named for the sound you hear when you push a bunch of rocks together. Clacks are abutting colonies of columns usually composed of spindles and stacks that look like an oversized version of the Giant’s Causeway. They are rare and known for their treacherous but resource-rich Donjon layer.
Cauldrons. Name origin is self-evident. Cauldrons are columns of any size with a water-filled caldera at their peak. Nonporous, meaning their Donjon is not connected to the base of the caldera. Highly valued as watering holes and homes for unique flora and fauna. They are uncommon.
Domains. Named for how quickly they end up controlled by one group or another as soon as they are discovered. All are a mile or more across. Domains far from the frontier are all well-developed ports, and many contain sophisticated crystalcraft shipyards. They are rare but import nodes in the civilizations of the Colonnades.
Footstools. As in, the footstools of Providence. The largest of the columns sit low above the Mist Sea and represent more than a thousand square miles of land on their top face. Only a handful exist, and the powers that rule them shape the modern world.
Reefs. Not all columns breach the surface of the Mist Sea. Large reefs are well-charted but hidden spindles and stacks can obliterate crystal craft who collide with them in the dense fog. Rarely, these are inhabited.
Mother Roots. Mother Roots are unimaginably vast trees whose upper branches pierce the Mist Sea and rise into the Capitoline layer, yet whose roots sprawl in Deep Abysm.
Crystals of Terra Firma
There are two primary classes of supernatural crystal: terra firmamenta and terra spectra. Mundane crystals are also plentiful in the Donjon and are regularly incorporated into jewelry and other decorative pieces, and diamond-tipped chisels are used to work the magical crystals.
Terra Firmamenta
Terra firmamenta is believed to have fallen from the Firmament when the bolt of Providence’s judgement shattered the heavens with a thunderous crash, sending the wondrous crystal hurtling earthward. It is glassy, nearly translucent but tinged with a slight golden color like the radiance of sunlight. It is hard - less so than diamonds and rubies, but similar to quartz. More importantly, it is superlight - significantly less dense than the Capitoline air - yet its density can be altered (temporarily, like putting it under pressure) by exposing it to infrasound or ultrasound of sufficient magnitude (proportional to the size of the crystal). Infrasounds increase the density of terra firmamenta, allowing it and attached objects to descend through the atmosphere without the addition of ballast. Ultrasounds function in reverse, further decreasing its density and allowing ascent without the discarding of ballast. Neither of these changes affect the volume of space the crystal occupies, though higher frequencies increase its translucence and lower frequencies increase its lustre.
Terra Spectra
Terra spectra is the name for a family of magically resonant crystals, rather than a single variety like terra firmamenta. These crystals are used as efficient foci of ambient mana, albeit ones that are generally only suited to emit a single, “primitive” evocation. There are endless varieties of terra spectra, but here are some of the more common or well-known varieties.
Lodestone. A white-flecked black stone that produces infrasound when channeled. Not available on the open market, and like the Shatter spell it is banned by multiple treaties for use in military applications. No one knows if the treaties would hold in open war. Ultrasonic Shriekstone and negasonic Hushglass have been hypothesized but never observed.
Ember. Produces fire when channeled. Commonly used for everything from heating stoves to ship-mounted flamethrowers. The iconic specimen of terra spectra, famed for its appealing red-amber coloration.
Lampstone. Produces light when channeled.The other iconic specimen of terra spectra, resembling quartz that shines as bright as a torch even when not channeled. Channeled lampstone is used for lighthouses, searchlights, and blinding light-fusils.
Stormpearl. Produces electricity when channeled. Notoriously difficult to use for small electrical tasks, almost all stormpearl is used in weaponry: stormgoads, lightning fusils, and thundercasters. Resembles topaz crossed with a plasma globe.
Terra Vitae. A lovely aquamarine stone that raises the dead to unlife and saps the strength of the living just by its mere presence. Corporeal undead seem to seek it out. Universal contraband.
Voidshard. An unstable crystal that inflicts entropy when channeled. Becomes increasingly unstable as it destroys, and explodes in a plasma fireball when overloaded. Still highly sought after as an armor-piecing weapon.
There are many others - telekinetic crystals, transmutative crystals, crystals that emit emotion, etc.. Ambitious wizards and scholarly associations have already begun the vast undertaking of cataloguing them, and they need unusual intrepid explorers to recover the rarest of rumored specimens.
Traversing the Colonnades
Crossing from one column to another is impossible by foot, so many ingenious methods have been discovered or invented over the centuries.
- By Causeway. Rarely, columns are connected by thin land bridges - natural archways that are sturdy enough for foot-traffic or more. More commonly, heavy rope bridges swing between nearby colonnades. They bridge impressive gaps - for rope bridges - and are the preferred transit method of the poor.
- By Crystalcraft. Skyships of all kinds, held aloft by the heavenly crystal. There are also the demiships - gondolas and dirigibles - that serve as alternatives where true crystalcraft are unavailable, unaffordable, or overcomplicated. More detail about the Crystalcraft can be found below.
- By Magic. Might wizards have never been bound by the same rules, and they were the first to travel at-will between the Columns. Arcane flight, shapeshifting, and teleportation all make the impossible possible.
- By Miststrider. Colossal insectoids like a cross between a water strider and a giraffe tread impossibly upon the surface of the Mist Sea. They are almost as large as the leviathans below, tall as a wizard’s tower. They have a penchant for gathering things from the columns they visit and transplanting them to the next column they visit. Some have been tamed, and their mahouts use them to ferry passengers over long distances with many stops - good only for trips where haste is not important, but typically quite affordable.
- By Wing. Great flying beasts like Rocs may be used to traverse the seas, but taming such proud creatures is no mean feat. Most are also ill-suited to carry more than a few people and a small amount of supply.
- By Worldvein. Other worlds called Demisects border the Colonnades and at times intersect. They are all dangerous and alien, but they allow vast distances to be traversed quickly and without flight. The Demisects of Faerie, Flesh, and Shadow are best-known, but there are others. Demisect entrances and exits are almost all fixed, and they vary greatly in size.
There may be others, but these are the ones known to mortals.
Crystalcraft
Crystalcraft are the lighter-than-air vehicles of the Colonnades, propelled by a hundred means but held aloft by only one - terra firmamenta. While these flying ships have no set configuration, there are some commonalities to be observed.
- One or more Flight Cores. These are the beating heart of the ship - the clusters of terra firmamenta crystals that bear it aloft. Larger, singular crystals flight cores are more expensive and vulnerable to shattering but are much easier to control and contain. Cluster-style Flight Cores react less evenly to sonic stimulation and are more vulnerable to leakage from a damaged Flight Organ, but they are far cheaper to acquire and effectively immune to shatter hazards.
- One or more Flight Organs. Each Flight Core requires a Flight Organ, an assembly that includes: the cage for the core, the scaffolding off which the crystalcraft’s body is suspended, and the sonic apparatus for adjusting lift. Modern Flight Organs on all but the smallest vessels fully enclose the core, both to protect it and to provide a more stable acoustic environment for the sonic apparatus, the controls of which are usually exterior to the organ or at least to the sealed cage itself - in order to protect the operator from physical discomfort hazardous long-term effects of exposure to infrasound.
- A Propellant. A Flight Core and Flight Organ without a source of thrust is no more than a freestanding elevator, incapable of directed horizontal motion. Very small craft can get by with pedal operated fans, but most craft use sails, coal-burning steam engines, or elemental engines.
- A Rudder. For maneuverability, most crystalcraft have a large, fan-like rudder at the stern of the ship. This rudder is usually controlled by a tiller on smaller craft and a helmsman on larger craft. Some more sophisticated craft may have multiple discretely adjustable rudders for tighter maneuvering.
Any more is more than is technically necessary to be called a true crystalcraft, though most craft have more. Gondolas (moving along a fixed track, no rudder), elevators (vertical motion only, no propellant), and dirigibles (not using terra firmamenta) are not considered crystalcraft, but are sometimes called demicraft.
More to Come
Gameable content is on the way. Ship mechanics, bestiary entries, and classes are planned. This whole setting is a resurrection/overhaul of a world I first imagined in middle school and is heavily inspired by the Edge Chronicles and another series I can't currently recall but will credit if I remember. I actually GM'd a few sessions in this setting in High School, so this isn't my first crack at this, but I'm a lot more patient with projects now. Hopefully.
Happy New Year,
Various