←ALL REALMS
Fantasy Adventure · TV-MA
THE GLASS SKY
The Vael came down out of a broken sky. Humans have magic, the Vael have machines, and you might be the one who has both.
The Vael came down out of a broken sky. Humans have magic, the Vael have machines, and you might be the one who has both.
Forty years ago the Vael came down over the kingdom of Caldria. Their glass towers stand over the old capitals, their harvester rigs walk the farmlands pumping out the land's magic, and the dragons are farmed for the magic in their blood.
Magic answers humans, elves and dwarfs; Vael machines answer only the Vael. Then came the half-Vael, hunted by the Registry, who can cast a spell and wake a machine with the same hands. Fight with spells, stolen rifles, or both.
The people of Caldria: farmers, townsfolk and the last mages, living under the glass towers.
Homeland Highcrown · Riverlands · Hill Country
The Thornwood elves, still free under trees where Vael machines fail, and the exiles who left them.
Wood Thornwood · Exile
Holders whose deep halls the rigs drilled out, now guarding the Resistance's tunnels.
Hold Greyhold · Broken-hold
The colonists from the broken sky: tall, grey-blue, light under the skin, masters of machines who cannot cast a spell.
Birth Ship-born · Spire-born · Rootbound
Children of both peoples, hunted by the Registry, the only ones who can work spell and machine together.
Upbringing Registry-raised · Village-hidden · Clan-born
ALSO IN THIS WORLD Goblin, Troll, Giant, Undead, Dragon, Beast, Construct.
A wizard of the old kingdom who draws spells straight from the ley lines the Vael are draining dry.
A holy knight of the old kingdom, sworn to the land and its people, whose oath still burns in a sword.
A druid of the hill country who speaks for the wild land, calls its thorns and storms, and takes on the strength of its beasts.
A priest of the old temples who heals the wounded, burns the dead and keeps the faith alive in cellars and hill camps.
A soldier of the Concord's line with a lance-rifle and shell armour, still serving or long since walked off with the gear.
A Concord tracker trained to hunt dragons and runaways, with a scanner, a carbine and a hunting drone that strikes when you do.
A Concord-trained technician who throws force shields over friends, sets down sentry turrets and talks Vael machines into obeying.
A Scrap Clan tinker who wires stolen Vael machines to hedge-spells and makes them run on magic instead of a Vael hand.
A half-Vael who can do what no one else can, cast a spell and wake a Vael machine with the same hands, and fights with both at once.
The Vael colonial government of Caldria, ruled by the Viceroy from the Glass Spire over Highcrown. The Concord holds the land with orbital lances, drone patrols and walking war-machines, and keeps the peace well enough where the harvest is not disturbed. Its whole purpose is the yield: the magic its harvester rigs pump from the ley lines and burn to power the Vael fleet. Orderly, patient and certain the natives will thank them one day, the Concord registers every half-Vael child as an asset through its Registry, which runs the checkpoints and the Registry schools, and hunts every dragon as a resource. Orderly conquest.
The human nobles who bent the knee in the first year and were rewarded for it. They keep their titles, their castles and their tax rolls, and the Concord gives them clean water, light without fire and Vael treatments that keep a lord young for decades. In return they collect the yield-tithe, sign the drilling leases and hand over the troublemakers. Some believe they saved their people from worse; most simply like being the last nobility left. Comfortable collaboration.
Mages, druids, priests and hill clans fighting to save what magic is left. The Resistance is a web of hedge-witches, temple cellars and hill camps rather than an army, held together by the last archmages of the old kingdom and the belief that the land can heal if the rigs stop drilling. It sabotages harvesters, smuggles half-Vael children out of the Registry and frees dragons from the pens. Brave, stretched thin and quarrelling over whether a half-Vael is a weapon, a hope or a spy. Hopeful defiance.
Thieves, tinkers and runaways who live in the ruins and wreck-fields left by the war, stripping fallen Vael machines for parts. Humans cannot run Vael tech by touch, so the clans' scrapwrights wire stolen gear to hedge-spells and make it run anyway. Many half-Vael end up here, because the clans ask no questions and pay well for hands that can wake a machine. They sell to everyone and belong to no one. Free and for hire.
Vael who went native. Some were soldiers who stayed too long in one village, some are scholars who fell in love with a magic they cannot cast, and some simply had children with the people they were sent to rule. They live in the hill valleys and border towns, feed the Resistance word of Concord movements, and teach half-Vael the machine half of what they are. To the Concord they are deserters; to many humans they are still the enemy. Quiet belonging.
Gather 2-6 friends on Discord. Pick a spell, a rifle or both, and decide together whether Caldria is worth taking back.