Welcome to Han.
A vibrant & beautiful world of floating islands full of magic and arctech.
Han is a living work of magical and technological art—called arctech—a vibrant, beautiful world where anything is possible. Optimism, innovation, and the spirit of creativity fuel an intoxicating renaissance of invention and artifice across Han. Its inhabitants frequently assert that “anything can be created,” and brilliant inventors seem to prove that saying every day.
Clockwork automatons plow fields, act as servants, bodyguards, sentries, mounts, and even pets. Soaring airships and zeppelins provide transport both within and between the cities and villages scattered throughout the world. These great flying machines carry Han’s denizens into the air and across vast distances for trade, exploration, and to harvest the important Arcerium Crystals (often shortened to arc crystals). Intricate and ornate thopters flit over marketplaces, carrying messages, gathering information, and delivering small packages. Elegant interlocking gear mechanisms raise and lower bridges over canals. Exquisite tools gleam like jewelry, incorporated into the bright and colorful fashions of artisans, prospectors, and inventors alike. In all these fabulous constructions, intricate design and graceful beauty are prized almost as much as efficient function. The artifice that produces these works is viewed as the ultimate form of creative and intellectual expression—both stemming from and further feeding the inventive spirit of the world.
Han is bright and hopeful, and its people are inspired. Every invention is an astonishing work of art, holding the potential to dramatically improve quality of life. The natural world mirrors the beauty and harmony of the worlds soaring cities and towns, with gracefully curving trees, eddying streams, sculpted mountains, and sapphire skies punctuated with graceful clouds.
Arcerium Crystals and WPE
Han owes its bright existence and wonderful magical inventions to the tangible presence of WPE (world pillar energy)—a raw form of magical energy that streams out of gigantic, tall pillars called, World Pillars. There are four such pillars throughout the world. Relics of a bygone age, none know their origins, or how it works, only that they have always been there and that ever important resource of WPE comes from them. This energy has seeped into Han and has become a critical part of the environment as well as the foundation of contemporary civilization. Some clouds that dot the skies are full of it, it suffuses life, sometimes altering it, and great auroras trace patterns across the night skies. The ingenious inventors of ages past have developed a way to refine volatile WPE, combined with an arcerium crystal (or arc crystal), into a potent and safe power source, a process that has made all the inventions and contrivances of society possible. For hundreds of years, Han’s greatest minds have been devising ever more wondrous ways to put WPE and arc crystals to use. From airships to animal-like constructs, from cogwork trains to musical artifacts, from medical devices to full-body mechanized suits, the creative possibilities are endless.
The Spectres
Despite the great magical and technological wonders, its great beauty, and vibrant optimism, Han is not without its dangers. Throughout the world are dark ghostlike beings called spectres. These beings exhibit no intelligence, just a ravenous hunger for the living. Attracted to violence, injury, and some forms of magic (such as necromancy), they are an ever-present danger to the population of Han. While some spectres travel individually, most travel in a fog referred to as Haze. Though, the marvels of arctech can provide protection. The large city of Lifont, other cities and towns, and even some larger airships are protected by a device that produces a Verdant Barrier. This is a dome of green energy that repels the spectres, prevents their passing through it, and negates some forms of magic (such as necromancy). Airship captains without the protection of a verdant barrier give a wide berth to clouds so as not to risk accidentally finding themselves in Haze and contending with the ravenous spectres.
The Great Expansion
Everyone knows of the great world spanning event that occurred a little over 300 years ago. It is said at that time that much of the haze from the Midlands and even some from the Wilds receded. The danger of spectres became less prevalent throughout the world and has allowed for easier trade and further exploration of the Wilds. The biggest parts of the expansion though, the world became larger (islands grew farther apart) and two great orbs in the sky appeared overhead. These mark the day and night and created the perpetual darkened area of the dusk line. Because of this great event, a new calendar was widely accepted and adopted. We begin in the year 304 AE, after the great expansion.
Oscilian Empire
The city of Lifont and the towns and villages of the surrounding region are like an enormous, precise cogwork machine, managed and supported by the Empire. The six noble families and countless bureaucrats who make up the Empire maintain the order of society and ensure that all its interlocking cogs turn in harmony. An important part of this work, of course, is facilitating the sanctioned distribution of WPE and maintaining the arctech-powered infrastructure that undergirds civilized life on Han. The Empire believes that the wonders and conveniences of an arctech-based society should be accessible to all. Thus, the nobles hold that the process of obtaining and distributing WPE, as well as the construction and sale of arctech-based inventions, must be standardized and regulated.
The Empire employs hundreds of theorists, engineers, and artificers to design machines, devices, and infrastructure. True innovations are valued and rewarded. But the value of any invention is tempered by the need to make the conveniences of an arctech-driven society available to all citizens. Thus, efficient construction is more important than any artistic expression of individuality, so that inventions can be mass-produced in Empire foundries and made widely available.
Standing to various degrees in opposition to the Empire is a disparate group of inventors, merchants, tinkers, thieves, traders, artists, and artisans that make up the citizens of the Free City of Glioport in the country of Kyne. The empire designates Kynian citizens and any subversives collectively as “renegades.” By portraying the renegades as a monolithic entity resembling a criminal gang, the Empire tries to sway public opinion against them. But in reality, the so-called renegades have a wide range of goals and motivations, different methods, and varying degrees of disdain or loathing for the Empire. Many renegades share a record of some past subversive activity viewed as criminal action under Empire law. This “subversion,” though, is often as innocuous as bypassing the strict regulations governing invention and the distribution of WPE.
Five Things to Know
What is Han? Here are a few key things to know:
1. A World of Sky
There are no oceans in the world of Han. It is a smaller world (about 8200 miles in diameter) full of floating islands that dot the sky. You are just as likely to find land above and below you as you are to find it across from you. The world is generally divided into three main sections (or elevations). The lowest section is referred to as the Wilds, the middle section is called the Midlands, and the highest section known as the Wastes. The Wilds is marked by a few of the largest floating islands in the world, though not many live here. The Wilds is mostly covered in haze and therefore the spectres are present throughout. There are many living creatures in this place, and they have learned to live in the presence of the spectres. The Midlands holds most of the world’s population as the haze (and spectres) are not as prominent here. The highest islands are part of what is called the Wastes. Legends hold that this place used to be green and full of life, like the midlands. Now its resources have been pillaged, trampled, and burned by savage orcs, gnolls, and other vicious monsters.
2. A Weird Astrology
Han does not have your typical night sky. There are no stars, only two orbs that are ever present in the sky, one for each hemisphere. These orbs operate on opposite cycles, when one is bright (like the sun) it is day, and the opposite will be dim (like a moon) and be night. These opposite cycles of night and day between the two orbs have created a perpetual area of dusk/twilight in a ring around the world. This area is referred to as the dusk line. During the night, the only other visible form of light in the sky would be an aurora, most often green in color, that stretches across the sky. This aurora condenses near two of the world pillars located in the eastern and western hemispheres.
3. The World Pillars and WPE
As mentioned previously there are four world pillars. One at each pole (north and south), and one at opposite ends of each hemisphere. The greatest cities of each nation, Lifont and Glioport, each inhabit the largest floating island that surrounds these pillars. These pillars are very tall, coming up from the dense haze of the Wilds and extending to the highest reaches of the Wastes. They are grey in color, feel like smooth stone to the touch, and have intricate carvings all around them. To all observation, they are solid, and not a structure that can be entered. From the two pillars at Lifont and Glioport, the energy that is the lifeblood of the world streams out. These nations have built facilities around them to collect some of this energy.
4. Vying for Resources
WPE is not the only essential resource needed for Archtech. The second essential component is Arcerium Crystals (or Arc Crystals). These are mined in various islands throughout the world, though they are most abundantly found in a chain of islands that ring the world in the dusk line. This area often becomes a point of conflict between the two nations and other nefarious forces such as thieves, pirates, or raiders from the wastes.
5. Magic Items.
Many great technological and magical marvels exist within Han. Most are readily available to buy from shops, traders, and vendors. These are all fueled by Arctech, the usage of an arcerium crystal charged with WPE. They have limited durations and do not naturally recharge at dawn (as is done in other worlds). Though, if an arc crystal is depleted it can be swapped out for a newly charged crystal, allowing the item to continue to be used. Most items, even mundane ones have a slot for an arc crystal to have its capability enhanced by its power.
Arctech
Technological magical art invented by brilliant artificers and tinkerers on Han. These wonderful devices have helped the world flourish and prosper, all powered by WPE and arcerium crystals.