00 This World
Welcome to the vibrant, dangerous, and rapidly changing world of Ersetu. Before diving into the mechanics of spellcasting and character creation, this chapter provides a brief overview of the world your characters inhabit.
1. A World in Transition
Ersetu is a world leaving its ancient past behind. For centuries, magic was the exclusive domain of isolated covens, wealthy city-state guilds, or fiercely guarded Noble Houses. To be a commoner was to be mundane, powerless against the whims of the aristocracy and the monsters that lurked in the dark.
Today, that paradigm is shattering. The devastation of recent wars decimated the traditional battlemage class, forcing the surviving nations to change tactics. Combining this need with a booming Technological Revolution—the rapid integration of trains, firearms, and industrialized alchemy — the major powers of the continent of Altazia established massive, state-subsidized academies.
Magic is no longer just a noble birthright; it is a public utility taught en masse to magically-talented commoners. Your characters are part of this new, booming magical middle-class. However, this democratization of power has deeply angered the surviving Nobility, whose historical privileges are evaporating, and has led to a drastic spike in highly sophisticated ARCANE crime.
The Geopolitical Landscape
The continent of Altazia is dominated by The Big Three—the competing superpowers of Eldemar, Sulamnon, and Falkrinea. Between them lie various smaller "Splinter States" surviving through shrewd diplomacy and defensive pacts. Off the coasts, threats loom, most notably the exiled necromancers and hostile forces of Ulquaan Ibasa.
2. Cyoria: The City of Magic
Your journey begins in Cyoria, the intellectual heart of the Kingdom of Eldemar.
Cyoria is a massive, sprawling metropolis built around the prestigious Royal Academy of Magical Arts. Unlike other cities that grew around natural harbours or vital trade routes, Cyoria was built in a seemingly impractical location for one single, irresistible reason: Ambient Magic.
The city is constructed directly over "The Hole"—a massive, plunging chasm that serves as immense entrance to the subterranean world known simply as The Dungeon. From this unfathomable abyss, vast quantities of raw magical energy (mana) gush upward to the surface. It is the greatest known "Mana Well" in the world.
The Dungeon is incredibly dangerous, infested with monsters that scale in lethality the deeper one descends, but the ambient energy it bleeds into the air makes Cyoria an absolute paradise for magical research. The city experiences periodic "mana surges" where the air itself hums with raw power, allowing for spells, rituals, and massive magical architecture that would be impossible to sustain anywhere else.
In this world, magic is not a fairy-tale miracle; it is a highly technical discipline of applied physics. The energy that fuels it—mana—permeates the atmosphere like nitrogen or oxygen, though its concentration is higher near the deep places of the earth (like the The Dungeon below Cyoria). A mage must first learn to sense this ambient energy and eventually cultivate it within their own soul.
The act of using magic is called Shaping, so named because the mage physically shapes the raw mana around them into invisible canals to guide and transform it.
Magic fundamentally exists in two forms:
Unstructured Magic
The raw expression of intent. A mage simply visualizes an effect and "shapes in the air," clumsily forcing mana to flow without a structured path until it happens. Because it relies purely on Willpower and lacks an organized framework of canals, it is horribly inefficient. Unstructured magic is useful for tiny parlor tricks (like lighting a candle or gently closing a door), but trying to use it for anything complex or powerful would take decades of trial and error. It is slow, clumsy, but highly flexible.
Structured Magic (Spells)
Because the chaotic nature of "shaping in the air" is too dangerous and slow for emergencies, the ancients developed a "divine limiter" system: Spells.
Structured magic uses chants, gestures, and intense mental visualization to force mana into a precise, pre-designed architecture of canals. When a mage casts a "Spell," they are rapidly constructing an invisible geometric framework out of the mana around them and triggering it. This allows for immediate, devastating, and massive effects—fireballs, teleportation, mind-reading.
The catch? Spells are rigid. Once the canal matrix is formed, the effect cannot be easily altered on the fly, and learning the precise mathematical structure of these canals takes immense study.
The Toll
Mages are not gods; they are scholars wielding tremendous power in fragile bodies. A mage caught off guard can be easily killed by a mundane sniper rifle or a knife in the dark. Furthermore, directly manipulating the soul or abusing one's mana reserves carries severe physical and psychological consequences, a risk every Academy student must learn to navigate.
What's Next?
Now that you know the basics of the world, Cyoria, and the nature of magic, proceed to 01 Core Mechanics to learn the mechanical rules of this system.