The World That Was
Imagine stepping through a towering ring of carved stone and emerging instantly on the other side of the continent. In Emeril's golden age, this wasn't fantasy—it was Tuesday morning.
The portals dominated the landscape like monuments to impossible dreams made real. These massive rings of stone and metal stretched twenty feet high, their surfaces alive with runes that shifted and flowed in patterns that hurt to follow too closely. Crystals embedded in their frames pulsed with light that seemed to come from somewhere beyond the physical world, and the air around them hummed with power that made your teeth ache and your hair stand on end.
The Precursors built them, along with countless other wonders we can only guess at. This vanished civilization left scattered traces across Emeril—buried vaults, crystalline devices that serve unknown purposes, and architectural fragments that seem to mock the laws of physics. But the portals? Those were impossible to miss. Towering, functional, and utterly transformative, they became the arteries of civilization itself.
Magic was stronger then, flowing through the world like blood through veins. Wizards wielded powers that today exist only in legend—spells of incredible scope and complexity that modern practitioners can barely comprehend, let alone cast. Most magic users today struggle to manage anything beyond simple cantrips and basic enchantments.
Nobody truly understood how the portals worked, but that didn't stop anyone from using them. Priests developed elaborate ceremonies they swore kept the portals stable. Scholars wrote treatises on portal theory that contradicted each other completely. Meanwhile, caravans stepped through rings in remote farmlands and emerged in city marketplaces, fresh bread still warm from ovens hundreds of miles away.
For over a thousand years, this was simply how the world worked.
The Day Everything Changed
One hundred years ago, in a single, terrible moment, every portal across Emeril went dark.
No warning. No explanation. The great rings that had hummed with power for millennia became nothing more than elaborate stone sculptures. Cities that had grown dependent on distant resources found themselves cut off overnight. Trade networks collapsed. Populations that had swelled beyond their local capacity to feed suddenly faced starvation.
The world didn't end, but it came close.
The Powers That Remain
From the chaos, three powers emerged, each on a different path to survival.
Tide's Reach
The jewel of the western coast became a maritime empire out of necessity. When the portals failed, Tide's Reach turned to the sea. Merchant fleets replaced portal networks, and the city became a hub of learning and innovation. Scholars here still dream of understanding the portal mystery, pouring over Precursor artifacts and ancient texts. The city buzzes with ambitious merchants, brilliant inventors, and determined researchers who believe the portals can be restored.
The Iron Citadel
Where Tide's Reach adapted through trade and knowledge, the Iron Citadel chose conquest. This fortress-city forged itself into an unstoppable war machine, deciding that if the old world was gone, they would build a new one through strength and steel. Their armies march under black banners, claiming territory and resources through superior discipline and brutal efficiency. They see the portal collapse as an opportunity—why restore a system that made the world soft when you can rule it properly through force?
High Sanctum
Perched in the mountains, this monastery city stands apart from the political struggles below. The monks of High Sanctum position themselves as spiritual guides and peacekeepers, sending emissaries to both Tide's Reach and the Iron Citadel. They perform ancient rites, offer wisdom, and maintain an air of serene detachment from worldly concerns. Many believe they hold the deepest knowledge about the portals and the Precursors, though they speak in riddles and parables rather than clear answers.
The World Today
The Wildlands Between
Between these three powers stretch the wildlands—vast territories where smaller settlements struggle to survive, where broken portal rings stand as haunting monuments to better times, and where strange things prowl in the shadows. The collapse didn't just cut off transportation; it left scars in the magical fabric of the world itself. Travelers report twisted creatures, patches of unstable magic, and ruins that whisper with residual power.
Some say the very land remembers the trauma of that day, and that the wounds still bleed strange energies into the world.
Whispers and Theories
Everyone has an explanation for why the portals failed. The faithful claim divine punishment for mortal hubris. Scholars blame magical exhaustion or systematic failure. Politicians point fingers at their rivals, certain that sabotage or forbidden experiments caused the catastrophe.
The truth remains as elusive as morning mist. What's certain is that the world has spent a century adapting to its new reality, building trade routes where portals once provided instant passage and learning to thrive within the boundaries of distance once again.
Your Place in This World
You find yourself in Tide's Reach, where the salt air carries whispers of ancient mysteries and distant shores. Here, scholars debate theories in marble halls while merchants plan expeditions to forgotten ruins. The city thrums with possibility—and with the tension of a world that refuses to accept that its golden age is truly over.
Adventure calls from every direction. Expeditions venture into the wildlands seeking lost Precursor sites. Scholars need protection while investigating broken portals. Political tensions simmer between the great powers. And somewhere out there, in forgotten ruins and guarded libraries, the truth about the collapse waits to be discovered.
The question isn't whether you'll find adventure in this fractured world—it's whether you're ready for what that adventure might reveal about the forces that shaped Emeril's fate.