Pocket Realms of The Sundered World

The World

Originally whole, the world has since been sundered into hundreds of pieces. The cumulative lands of the undivided world were oblong in shape, rooted deep in a broad, impassable ocean. The gods decorated the sky with celestial bodies and set them on their courses, ensuring the cycles of day and night, summer and winter. The world was not a planet, not spherical. The lands lay flat across its surface, the entire world enclosed within a bubble, floating within the endless Ethereal mists.

The different races developed in their own ways and ignored each other, for the most part. The elves lived deep within the wilds where men feared to go, the dwarves dwelt in their high mountain valleys. Men wandered where they would, just one savage race fighting amongst others. But men were the more adventurous and, with the help of their gods, began to develop civilizations. Made aggressive by their age-old wars against the monstrous races, men eventually turned upon each other. Thus was born the Empire.

The Empire and the Sundering

The Empire itself had no name. It simply existed as The Empire. The first of its kind in history, all peoples fell before its armies, all lands swallowed up. In their hubris and unquenchable thirst for power, the Council of Wizards, those near-immortal advisers to the Emperor, were tricked by demons and lost all (as described in The Lost Empire.) The world was ripped asunder and the pieces flung into the Ether. Each a singular entity with no outside contact. Each left to its own devices, suddenly released from the Empire’s grasp.

Three thousand years have passed without change. In most places, the Empire is remembered only in vague, mythological terms. The sundering of the world figures prominently in myth and legend but its cause can only be guessed at. Each realm has moved on, surviving the devastating changes as best they can. Some had it easier than others, with tracts of arable land and productive mines. Others were left with few resources and bizarre landscapes. Some lands were stricken with truly strange effects, such as The Three Cities of Dusk, Dawn, and Luna. Some may even be barren of natural life.

The Role of The Crystal Tower

The only thread linking each pocket together is the Crystal Tower. In each realm the Tower wears a different face, and yet there is only one true Tower. Originally used by the wizards as a magical gateway for keeping tabs on the far flung regions of the Empire, it now stands as an impenetrable mystery. Inaccessible without the key, an artifact long lost to the demon realm, it is untouched by both mortal hand and time. If the key can be retrieved, the different realms may once again be traversed by strangers.

Who knows? Maybe this sundered world will become whole once more.