Fantasy Arcadia, Hereafter - Lore

[The One Eyed Bandit]

ARCADIA, INDEXED
i - Arcadia, The Sunken City
ii - The Empire Divine, Eternal
iii - The Inhuman Races
iiii - Pathways to Power​

 

[The One Eyed Bandit]

i - Arcadia, The Sunken City​

Nestled in an innocuous corner of the Pacific Ocean, Arcadia rests, bustling with a grim luminescence. A city that once lay abandoned and forgotten, it now, appropriately, plays host to the world's dregs. Those who were cast out of the world above, and forced to flee to such a far-flung corner of the world that not even the Sun would bother to grace it.

Arcadia is a sprawling thing, which spreads over and into the ocean floor, extending down into the Earth, rather up and towards the sky, as the surface cities do. It plays host to a population of approximately one-hundred thousand beings both supernatural and otherwise, which, while it may sound like a reasonable number on its own, pales in comparison to the almost seventeen-billion humans who swarm about on the surface above. Indeed, Arcadia is hardly a stronghold, from which the dark forces of the world can plot their return to their rightful rule of the night, but instead a refuge, within which they can lick their wounds and hope that mankind turns its fangs, sharpened by wisdom and ingenuity, towards itself as it were once so aught to do.

Social Structure​

Whilst Arcadia has no official ruling body, it is effectively controlled by a social aristocracy, formed by supernatural beings of either great influence, or great power. Via their rule, the city sits under three primary lordships, The Midnight Synod, Phantasmal Assembly, and the Haggard Path. Each of these has been formed by groups of the supernatural that share a common origin, and common intentions for Arcadia, and while none of these aristocratic parties are at one another's throats, per se, kept in check by their mutual fear of the Empire above, they are hardly on amicable terms, either.

The first of these parties, The Midnight Synod, is made up of the Nightwalkers, most of which are former humans who abandoned their humanity in favour of a life eternal, embraced by the light of the Kindly Moon. First and foremost amongst the Synod are the Vampires and Werefolk, who are represented by the Bleak Lady, Carmilla, and the Twins of Industry, Geri and Freki, respectively. They, alongside the Synod's other representatives, have been at the head of Arcadia's industrialization. In the scant years that the supernatural have inhabited Arcadia, they have already established a strong network of blood farms, trade routes, and other general goods.

Of Arcadia's groups of interest, they are undoubtedly the most human in their attempts, and have made great strides in their efforts to colonize the sunken city into something that resembles their home, as many of their ilk still see it, on the surface. Many amongst the Synod have even turned to the religions of old, which now lay abandoned by Humanity at large, perhaps hoping for sympathy, and salvation, from those abandoned gods who now lay just as destitute as they.

td;dr: capitalist vampires and werewolves.​

Second, The Phantasmal Assembly, is composed of the true undead. Those who once lay dead and rotting in the ground, and now stand risen and blessed with life once again. Spectres and Reanimators make up the bulk of the assembly, which are represented by The Syndicate, The Muted King, The Last Pharaoh. The Assembly are by far and large the most political of the aristocracy, duly invested in spreading their influence, and building up as healthy a collection of debtors as they possibly can. They are responsible for the establishment of Arcadia's economical structure, as it exists now, and are able to exert the most influence over the surface, placing them as the go-to faction should one need safe passage to or fro the sunken city.

The Assembly makes no attempt to veil its pursuit of dominion. Many of its founding figures were members of influential shadow governments and criminal syndicates before their expurgation from the surface, and seek to reconsolidate the power they once held within the halls of their new home.

tl;dr: machiavellian undead.​

The last of the three, The Haggard Path, has no human origin. They are of the spiritual ilk, those wisps that once danced in the moonlight unbidden by human laws and morality. They are the Fae, Youkai, Yaoguai, Fairytale Monsters, and whatever else was born of the Earth, not the ape-shaped plague that rests upon it. Oberon, Baigujing, Ibaraki-dōji, and The Baba Yaga rule The Path as the unsteadiest of the three alliances, their power spread unevenly, and often in opposing directions. Still, they stand united by their decided otherness, in comparison to the once-human inhabitants of the city which haunt Arcadia at large, and often place as much blame for the fall from grace on them as they do the Empire above.

The Path, ironically, is the least cohesive of the factions. Each of their leaders possesses their own designs, or lack thereof, and in their division have found themselves preoccupied with simply having to hold their ground against the other two much more united factions. They are saved almost entirely by the fact that they, save an individual exception, are by far the most powerful of the factions, in the mystical sense. The Path are singlehandedly responsible for the mystical upkeep of the city, including ensuring that it remains simply sunken, and not flooded. Making them into an essential service which the Assembly and Synod can not easily be rid of.

tl;dr: boomer fairies and assorted spirits.​

 

[The One Eyed Bandit]

ii - The Empire Divine, Eternal​

The Empire Divine, Eternal, and Under the Unerring Shepardship of Her Majesty, The Empress, is the grandest civilization to have ever graced the Earth. In only four hundred years, it brought every nation, every creed, and every race under its flag, and united them under a single, pure belief: Humanity itself.

Utopia is what The Empire is called by its citizens. None go hungry, the skies run blue and pure, and with each day they progress further and further forward. With the Earth bent over her knee, The Empress, in her eternal wisdom, has now turned her eyes to the stars themselves. In four hundred years, She took the planet, and in four hundred more, the solar system, too, will be Hers. Or at least, so the propaganda says.

Alas, though, a utopia for one is never a utopia for all. There are always the dregs, the undesirables and the outcasts. Mysticism, spirituality, religion, and all those things once so core to the human experience are now seen as primitive, and an unnecessary fettering upon Her Grand Design. Religion, while not officially outlawed, is discouraged to the point of discrimination, and more poignantly, anything and anyone who bears genuine ties to the supernatural has been criminalized and hunted down.

The Purges, as they were known, are something that the Empire will never officially document, for doing so would mean to acknowledge the legitimacy of those ancient beliefs that it has worked so desperately to snuff out. They were an extermination, a silencing of all that could ever prove that the Empire's dogma was false, and upon their well-rested britches, the stranger things of the world were nary prepared for such an assault. In only a decade, a sum total of eighty-seven percent of the world's supernatural elements were tracked down and exterminated. Those that remained were force to flee to the corners of the world where the Empire had no interest, for anywhere truly beyond its reach no longer existed, and had not for a very, very long time.

Technology​

Now, the Empire stands as the sole superpower on the planet, all of its opposers crushed, or forced to skulk away into some worthless corner of the Earth until they wither and die. Technological progress, which had been slow during the years of expansion, has begun to accelerate as the Empress pursues her next, lofty ambition. The common mode of transportation is the flying tram, a Contraption of UnMagykal make, which soars through the skies silently, and without fuel.

Many mechanical devices are charged with UnMagykal power, which in a rollout decreed by the Empress Herself, has been slowly replacing electricity and fossil fuels over the course of the last century. The common police are still armed with mundane firearms, but it is not uncommon to see military officers honoured with the possession of a weapon of UnMagykal make.

Very little of the modern technologies find their way down to Arcadia, however, especially since more and more of them are being made with the anathema that is UnMagyk. Electrical devices and Steam Contraptions are still common in Arcadia, but in the world above, they are seen as increasingly archaic, and it is in the interest of certain groups of interest in the sunken city to somehow subvert Mankid's UnMagykal for Arcadia's own use.

 

[The One Eyed Bandit]

iii - The Inhuman Races​

Arcadia is home to a melting pot of inhuman races, from Vampires to Dragons to Youkai. What you'll find below is not a total list of every form of mystical being that inhabits the sunken city, and certainly not those that inhabit the entire world, but instead an assortment of broad classifications that account for a majority of Arcadia's inhabitants. There are many subraces and diverging origins even unto these classifications themselves, and it is hard to find even two Vampires, which is the race that is typically the most consistent in their supernatural traits, that are totally alike.

Vampires
​

Perhaps the most iconic of the supernatural races, Vampires are the youngest of the influential supernatural races. With a racial lineage that falls short of a millennium, the vampiric clan is practically a newborn foal when compared to the other supernatural races. They benefit from the typical traits you'd expect from a Vampire; Enhanced speed and strength, a natural charm, and an extreme aversion to the sun. An average Vampire can endure roughly ten minutes in the sun, suffering from symptoms scaling up from skin irritation, to boiling flesh, and then eventual ignition and crumbling into ash.

Notable to the vampires of Arcadia is the Bloodmadness. The more frequently a vampire indulges in the crimson ichor that defines their race so, the more their body will be warped by their hunger. Overindulgence in blood will first dye a vampire's skin blue, then purple, and then finally red, as the foreign blood that they gorge themselves so thoroughly on stains both their body and soul. All of their vampiric traits are enhanced by the process, their strengths and weaknesses both. A fully Bloodmaddened Vampire will be many times stronger and swifter, but will be unable to endure the sun's touch for any longer than a few moments.

Werefolk​

The Werefolk are less a specific race, and more a congregation of people struck with a shockingly common circumstance. There have been many, many iterations of curses and mystical diseases that cause the afflicted to violently transform into a beast when bathed in the moon's light over the course of human history. Werewolves, weretigers, werebears, and even weresharks have all haunted the Earth and one point or another, and eventually, they found enough common ground between their experiences to band together as one collective race. Werefolk are often monstrously strong, able to throttle multiple of the other supernatural races at once in a battle of pure physicality, though this does vary between the subraces.

Not all Werefolk are transfigured by the moon's touch, nor do they all lose their senses, or even have a weakness to silver bullets, but they will mostly have at least some of the stereotypical traits, as many of the Werecurses throughout history are derived from one another.

Important to the Werefolk of Arcadia is Moonstone. Imported in bulk by the Empire after their first few lunar expeditions, Moonstone is literally what the name would imply, stones from the moon. A Wereperson is able to use a piece of genuine Moonstone to transform on demand, and in Arcadia, where neither the sun nor moon's light can reach, it is the only mode of transformation that they are able to access without delving into the realm of the arcane.

The Risen Dead & Disembodied Souls
​

An assortment of all of the physically reanimated undead. The Risen Dead includes everything from zombies, to skeletons, to mummies, and everything in-between. They are, frankly, the least notable of the major supernatural races, only excelling in their sheer numbers. Almost half of the supernatural beings in Arcadia are some form of Risen Dead, and make up the bulk of the civilian population. They are likewise the most human of Arcadia's races, as many of them were either reanimated against their will, or by pure happenstance. Powerful members of the Dead certainly do exist, but the path to power is one laid by their own hands, not their racial heritage.

Disembodied Souls are the other half of the undead pie. Disembodied Souls are the assortment of the undead that were returned to life not in the possession of a physical body. This includes everything from formless poltergeists, to full-bodied apparitions, to bloodthirsty spirits of vengeance. They are comparatively much less common than their physical counterparts, in part due to the fact that far more of them tend to be interested in moving on from their spectral afterlife.

Generally speaking, Disembodied Souls are beings of wanton emotion made manifest after the passing of a mortal soul, though it is not unheard of for a supernatural creature to enjoy an afterlife (or second afterlife) as a ghost, either. Their bodies are formed of pure Magic, so they are the only supernatural race that is in contest with the Earthly Spirits in regards to the toxicity of UnMagyk towards themselves, but also find themselves with a natural inclination towards the mystic arts, even if they were totally unaware of them in life.

The Earthly Spirits
​

The Earthly Spirits are a broad classification for the magical beings in the world that were never once human, animal, nor any other sort of mortal creature. They are magical in nature and origin, arisen from the latent energies of the planet and given form by their native environments. Fae, Youkai, Yaoguai, and many other forms of fairytale creatures are all ultimately a form of Earthly Spirit, simply dyed by a different culture and origin. They are by far the most varied of the supernatural races, having in the past contained entire ecosystems unto themselves.

They are likewise the most crippled by The Empire's advance. UnMagyk has choked the natural flow of magic to the point where the birth of a new Spirit is incredibly rare, and likely to be followed by its immediate extermination. They are also the form of supernatural creature the most vulnerable to UnMagyk's anathematic effects, to the point where even the presence of UnMagyk within their vicinity can have negative effects on them.

On the other hand, though, they are by far the most inherently mystical of the supernatural races, possessing powerful and bizarre Magyks beyond the understanding of a human mind. The casual bending of the laws of physics is child's play for more powerful spirits, to the point where there are even a few of them that even the Empress, in her dogmatic crusade against the supernatural, was happy to leave undisturbed.

The Infernal Kin
​

The last of the major supernatural races, and the greatest pariahs of the lot. The Infernal Kin are a similar sort of existence to The Earthly Spirits, and for the most part have never lived a human life. However, whereas The Earthly Spirits are a product of their environment, The Infernal Kin are a result of human influence on the world. Their form is shaped by human belief, or more accurately, an inversion of it. They are Demons and Devils, the stereotypical path from what is good and holy that has been featured in so many of mankind's beliefs over their history. They are also enjoy a much more physical existence than The Earthly Spirits, and thus are not nearly as harrowed by UnMagyk as their cousins.

The Infernal Kin, despite their dramatic name, are not inherently evil, however, no matter how much the local preacher may insist that they are. Faith is a complicated thing, and while in one verse a set of teaching may abhor murder, in another they may insist upon prejudice. The Infernal Kin are likewise a complicated affair. War and Liberation can both fall under the purview of a single Demon, and a lone Devil may be responsible for just as many happy endings for the oppressed as they are tragic deaths for the powerful.

With the rise of UnMagyk and the new order of human belief however, The Infernal Kin of the last few centuries have become more and more warped, to the point where they are completely unrecognizable to their older siblings. Alien and bizarre, while born of the same phenomena as Demons and Devils, the modern Infernal Kin are more akin to wild, changing forces of nature, and are the only remaining supernatural threat that The Empire concerns itself with. The Infernal Kin, to distance themselves from this new generation of Demons, have even christened them with a new name: Horrors.

Witches & Warlocks
​

To practice Magyk is to muddy one's own self with the mystical. For most, the casual magicians and dash spell blades, this means only knowing one's enemy. But to those who truly immerse themselves in the mystical arts, it is to warp the fabric of their very own being.

Witches and Warlocks are those foolhardy Humans that delved so deeply into the world of Magyk, that their very selves have changed. Magyk has taken root within their veins, changing them into something that stands halfway between the mundane and mystical world. They have been historically shunned by human society at large, their warped nature inspiring a natural distrust in the mundane human population, and now, when Magyk is as obscured and reviled as it is, they are driven even further from the borders of society. It is common for a Witch or Warlock's warped nature to be reflected on their body, many a practised member of the pseudo-race sporting animal, or outright alien features, diving them from society more and more as their dive into Magyk deepens.

Witches and Warlocks both have an enhanced aptitude for Magyk, and an inability to cast UnMagyk, as the Magyk which now flows through their veins has so thoroughly alienated them from the Empress's divine plan that they are divorced from its power entirely. They are, however, the Inhuman Race which is the least crippled by UnMagyk's touch. It will stifle their spells as it will any form of Magyk, but their bodies are not much more harmed by it than that of a regular human.

 

[The One Eyed Bandit]

iiii - Pathways to Power​

Magyk, and UnMagyk​

In Arcadia, Magyk is quantified by belief. The grand resonance of sentient belief made manifest, Magyk allows the immortal and mortal alike to shape the world with their words and mind alone. A natural mechanic of the world it can be rooted in any belief, so long as the wielder's faith is pure and its basis strong.

Unfortunately, the age of Magyk as it was once known is over. Mankind has abandoned the old ways, and only the supernatural entities of the world still cling to them. While common in Arcadia, as well as the other supernatural refuges, belief in old-world spirituality and religion is incredibly scarce amongst the human population. Tradition Magyk still functions, but it is now a shadow of what it once was, only able to operate on a large scale through the use of long, laborious rituals. More common now is its use as a personal tool, adapted to the user's specific needs and employed as a paranatural tool, prized for utility rather than strength.

Aggressive Magyk still exists, and likely will until Magyk fizzles out and dies entirely, but the days during which a warlock could burn an army into ash, or a lone witch could lay a curse upon an entire village are long gone. When it comes to fireballs and lightning bolts, all but the most deadly of Magyk users have been reduced to using it at the level of a duel, rather than a one-man war, as they might have once done.

tl;dr: magic comes from being a good boy and believing in something higher. it's a lot weaker than it used to be because spirituality is dead.​

UnMagyk is the arcane art of Humanity and Humanity alone. Where Magyk is rooted in belief, UnMagyk is instead born of denial of superstition, and the Divine Logic of Her Lady, The Empress. In comparison to the Magyk of old, it is far more rigid, something to be tallied and calculated rather than freely expressed, but it bears with it an incredible effect of corrosion against all things supernatural.

Should a spell of Magyk and a hex of UnMagyk meet, wrought of equal strength and competence, the one of UnMagyk shall, invariably, snuff out the one of Magyk as if it had never been there. In equal measure, UnMagyk is anathema to the supernatural. Should any being that is touched by supernatural forces attempt to wield UnMagyk in their own hands, they will suffer the consequences, ranging from severe pain, in the case of former humans, to outright death, in the case of those of a spiritual nature.

tl;dr: unmagic comes from being a nerd and hating on god(s). it inherently cancels out magic unless the magic spell is a fair bit stronger, and is very bad for supernatural beings to use.​

Diabolicism​

Mankind has made many bids for power over the course of history. UnMagyk, while by far the most fruitful of humanity's ventures, was far from its first foray into the arcane. One of the oldest forms of human mysticism is Diabolicism, the practice of ritualistically consuming the flesh of supernatural creatures to take their strengths, and by consequence, their weaknesses, unto oneself. It is a primitive and brutal art, frowned upon even during the time before UnMagyk's invention, and now a grave taboo that will earn will a death sentence if practised in the pursuit of anything other than the Empire's will.

Diabolicism is a practice of repetition, to continually undertake the vile, oftentimes painful process that is the consumption of the supernatural, bolstering one's own mystical nature as a result. Depending on what the practitioner has devoured they can receive a wide range of boons, ranging from, but not limited to, longevity, increased strength, empowered magical abilities, and so on. Diabolicism is a double-edged sword, however, and should one partake of the flesh of a beast thoroughly enough to empower themselves they will be cursed with their weaknesses too. Someone who consumes the flesh of vampires will become weak to the sunlight, a werewolf weak to silver, and so on. UnMagyk, too, becomes more and more deadly to the Diabolicist as they practice the art, as their very nature becomes more and more Inhuman.

Diabolicism, even if practised as one's sole source of nutrition, will never fully strengthen a human to the level of their meal of choice, or even take them halfway there. Their inherited traits, both boons and curses, will be much milder than that of their prey. One may also partake in the flesh of multiple creatures, but should they differ too much, or should one go too far in the variety of the supernatural diet, it will cause their body great harm, generally leading to crippling and eventually death.

tl;dr: if you eat a specific magic creature a lot you will get a worse version of their strengths and milder version of their weaknesses. you can mix and match multiple but if you go to far or mismatch you'll get rekt.​