Overview

Magic is resonance made will, the vibration of reality itself. Across all planes: the Hymn, Clamor, Kiln, Aria, and Wyrd, magic is drawn not from matter, but from the spaces between: charged, unfinished, and waiting for a mind to shape it.

All beings channel magic through the Chorus via interplanar rifts. For those residing within the three Echo planes (the Kiln, Wyrd, and Aria) magic may linger or travel through their worlds' respective ley line networks: in Yoren, it is the underground leyroot system known as the Waylines; in the Wyrd, through the roots of their feywoods; and in the Kiln, via subterranean tunnels along which elemental energy seeps like living veins.

Denizens of the Reflection planes (the Clamor and Hymn) and of the Hush typically channel magic or antimagic directly through their bodies, releasing it immediately upon casting. However, if such beings gain (or regain) a soul, their energies gain the potential to travel along the ley networks of the Echo planes too, bridging the flow of resonance across worlds.

To cast magic, one must open themselves, loosening the bond between mind, body, and soul to allow the force of the planes to flow inward. A mage does not create power; they attune to a chosen plane and let it resound through their being.

A mage is thus not an inventor, but a conductor; one who shapes will into melody.

History

The Age of Titans

Long ago, the ancient Titans—born of the glassen amber of the great Echdrassil trees—were the first to wield the arcane in its most primitive form. These worldtrees drank from the Chorus through small, stable rifts, distilling it into a form the titans could then bend to their will. Beneath their forests, colossal roots bound the First Surface together as nerves wrap a living body, through which magic pulsed unceasing across all of Yoren.

While titanian magic lacked the complexity of modern arcana—often limited to but a single element or enchantment—what it lacked in craft, it made up for in volume, for in those days the Chorus's reserves ran untapped and overflowing. With the sheer scale of those who wielded it, a single fireball, cast and failed, would have leveled a city to nothing but a singed pit of ash.

In time, the Titans split into warring factions, each vying for control over the Echdrassils, as the trees served both as womb to new kin and beacon of power alike. Some rose to guard the trees; others sought to drain them dry, that they might command the Grand Song itself. Nevertheless, saying the strife drew blood would be an understatement.

The Sundering Wars raged on for mega-annum, until the Chorus, having given all it could give, turned upon the children of amber, and the Late Choral Bombardment fell upon the world.

The First Surface collapsed. The Titans and their worldtrees were annihilated, and Yoren's earthen plates woke to fire as titan civilization was swallowed whole into the mantle, in what men and beasts alike now call the Gravedeep.

The Last Echdrassil & the Waylines

Afterwards, the Last Echdrassil rose in the far southern reaches of the continent now known as "Nimoria," planted by the final surviving Titan; Nimor, as the Héroska would come to name her mere moments before death claimed her. The seedling's roots drank deep of her carcass, imbuing it with a tincture of her essence, growing unlike any that came before it, until at last it birthed mortal life upon Yoren.

Deep into the Gravedeep its roots reached, seeking its lost kin, but found only death and silence. So it dug deeper, spreading through the vast caverns below, and gave rise to the Waylines; a newer web of ley-roots, much like its forebears though mildly weaker, carried through smaller, younger Echdrassil sprouts the world over.

The Wayfaring & the First Shattering

More time passed still, until some 145,000 years ago, the Prichordial of Flux, Hallenmyr, manifested through the power of the Last Echdrassil, and blessed three nameless kalmenids with the gift of the outer planes, channeled through a halo behind their heads, known ever since as the Wreath of Omens. These three called others unto them, and thus began the first great pilgrimage: the Wayfaring, long before any true civilization had taken root.

Those who walked the path came to be called the first wayfarers, bearers of the arcane through the wreath, able to speak both unto Hallenmyr and their own gods and pantheons alike.

The wayfarers conjured a ritual to aid the Prichordial in the crafting of a new vessel from the last Echdrassil, so that a new age of resonance may dawn—but alas the Hush intercepted, and the tree was destroyed, and in its place rose the Shattered Spire.

Hallenmyr fell silent once more, and the surviving wayfarers scattered back into the pre-dawn of history, seeding generations yet to come with the gift of the wreath.

This woeful calamity, the First Shattering, gave birth to tieflings, to wild magic, to beastfolk, to rogue rifts answering to none, and to the cavity torn into the sky, now known as the Wound of the World.

From it, too, came the great fey migrations, from whence in time arose the fey and elven peoples of Yoren.

The Cinderfall War & Second Shattering

Untold ages passed, the Cinderfall War broke out in the east, when the gnoll matron Tyrannia, having unearthed a shard of a titan's heart was driven to madness by its power. Her tribes fell upon the riparian empire of Gal-Satur in Kalmeros, and pressed further into Orentia, hungering for more such artifacts.

The Arclord Vo'Rosk, reincarnation of the First Mage, attempted a ritual such as his forebears once had, meaning to draw all magic back into the Chorus and nullify it. But it backfired and thus came the Second Shattering.

The Nevalo region was scorched into the Ashnavel Cinderwilds, and a new rift tore open above it; the Ashnavel Crevace. Smaller than the Wound, yes—yet no less troubling—for cracks began to spread from both worldrifts' edges, each reaching slowly toward the other, like vines of poison ivy across a mossy stone wall.

The Thaumatarchate & Sanctum Eldroot

In the wake of the Second Shattering, Vo'Rosk and his wife Mysteria founded the Thaumatarchate, binding magic under the law of the Shackles.

These Shackles came, in part, as answer to Rafucius—once a friend to both Mysteria and Vo'Rosk, who broke from their ranks to fight the invaders his own way. In his desperation to bring back his wife who fell in the war, he created necromancy and other dark arts, called "antimagic," and gathered a cult who named themselves the Rafucians, later known as the Shacklebreakers.

He believed that unbound magic was worth its danger. This division concluded in a duel between him and Vo'Rosk.

Rafucius was defeated, imprisoned beneath Ashnavel, though his cult endured in secret for centuries thereafter.

Vo'Rosk, Mysteria, and the surviving Selkians of the Thaumatarchate led an expedition to Nimoria, to build Sanctum Eldroot and stand watch over the Wound of the World, in the hopes of mending it. But the Withering Plague came upon them, and claimed most of their settlers—and much of the continent's natives as well.

Shatterings

Shatterings are catastrophic metaphysical ruptures in the Grand Song, happening when the balance between realms collapses and the Aria can no longer harmonize extraplanar influence. Unlike localized Chorus Points, a Shattering is a world-altering event that fractures reality on a continental or planetary scale, causing uncontrolled rifts, volatile magic, and widespread destabilization of the Chorus. In their aftermath, landscapes are reshaped, climates shift, life mutates, and new arcane anomalies and afflictions emerge.

The First Shattering, which created the Wound of the World, occurred 145,000 years ago when Hallenmyr attempted to rekindle a new age of resonance. It birthed the modern form of arcane magic, permanently wounded Yoren, and gave rise to true Points of Convergence, the greatest remnant being the Shattered Spire of Nimoria.

The Second Shattering, triggered during the Cinderfall War, proved such events can still occur, birthing the Ashnavel Crevice and destabilizing surrounding ley alignments. The Selkian archwizard-general Vo'Rosk was forced to conjure a spell that was intended to siphon all incoming magic to stop the war, however it destabilized and triggered a massive explosion that decimated Nevalo instead.

Scholars agree a Third Shattering would be apocalyptic, threatening not only Yoren but the integrity of the Grand Song itself.

The Waylines

The Waylines are Yoren's global ley line network, remnants of the ancient Echdrassil root-web that once linked the world's primordial worldtrees. Originally created when the Last Echdrassil extended its roots across the continents to replace its fallen kin, the Waylines carry magical energy throughout the world much like the First Surface's original root-web did for the Titans.

The Waylines were formed after the Late Choral Bombardment destroyed the Echdrassils, the Titans, and the First Surface, leaving a vast hollow space of dead worldtrees and toppled megacities deep within Yoren's mantle known as the Gravedeep. In its grief, the Last Echdrassil reached downward into this chasm and back upward across the surface, seeding new sprouts and knitting a weakened, secondary arcane network.

During the First Shattering, the Last Echdrassil exploded, becoming the Shattered Spire and giving rise to the Wound of the World and lesser rogue chorus rifts. Though the tree was destroyed, the Waylines survived and continue to pulse faintly with choral resonance. Scholars disagree whether this persistence is evidence of Hallenmyr's lingering will, a hidden surviving worldtree, or an unknown power within the Gravedeep.

Many magical species, including the Vistora are believed to have gained sentience or anomalous abilities due to prolonged exposure to Wayline energy. Modern mages refer to the Waylines as Yoren's living leylines.

Wayfarers are named after this network: those who walk the Waylines, guided by the fading pulse of resonance.

Chorus Points

Overview

Chorus Points are locations within the Aria where the veil between realms has thinned. At the center of each is a rift: a fracture in the fabric of space and time through which magic from the outer planes seeps into the world via the Chorus.

This influx of foreign essence distorts the surrounding environment, gradually reshaping it to reflect the nature of the realm to which the rift is anchored.

The earliest Chorus Points trace their origins to the Age of Titans, when they were more stable points of convergence, drawn forth by the Echdrassil worldtrees that gave rise to Titankind. After the First Shattering, however, magic itself was destabilized though also amplified, leading to rogue rifts appearing across the Grand Song, particularly within the Aria on the world of Yoren.

Types of Chorus Points

Points of Dissonance

Linked to the Clamor, the plane of Chaos. The land warps as everything seems to slip out of alignment, colors distort, and sounds fracture into broken chords; structures tilt at impossible angles, and weather lashes unpredictably.

Closer to the rift, reality unravels; stone floats in spirals before smashing down, water surges upward, trees twist into mirrored or jagged forms, and light stutters through reds, yellows, and harsh blues as shadows twitch on their own. Creatures behave unnaturally, from timid ones turning feral to monsters fleeing in panic. At the center lies the rift itself: a crack of crimson or prismatic distortion, constantly reshaping, bleeding the Clamor's wild, discordant influence into the Aria.

Points of Consonance

Linked to the Hymn, the plane of Order. Mounds of earth rise in perfect geometric forms, rivers trace precise arcs and sharp angles, and the air hums with a steady, unsettling vibration.

Light flickers across surfaces in exact, repeating patterns, casting shadows that never quite shift naturally, while clouds march in uniform rows and weather obeys relentless cycles. Trees grow in perfect spirals, stone lies unnaturally flat, and water flows without turbulence, as if reality itself resents disorder. Creatures near the rift move with eerie coordination, following rhythm and pattern beyond instinct. At the center, the rift glares like a shard of crystalline gold, radiating the Hymn's rigid influence outward, imposing its precise order on all it touches.

Elemental Points of Resonance

Linked to the Kiln, the plane of raw element. Around these points, the environment quivers according to the element that powers the rift: water may coil in twisting streams or surge upward, fire pulses and arcs without fuel, stone rises, cracks, and fractures in jagged formations, and wind eddies in spirals that defy natural flow. Regardless, the elemental domain that powers the rift within these points causes the local landscape to be overwhelmed or overwritten by it.

Creatures and objects behave inconsistently: animals may erupt with sudden elemental bursts, while constructs shudder and move as if alive. At the heart of the point hangs a quivering rift of molten, shimmering, or flowing energy that reflects its native element, constantly reshaping and radiating its resonance outward.

Whimsical Points of Resonance

Linked to the Wyrd, the realm of fey and living myth. The landscape around them bends and folds: forests twist into impossible wild curves, rivers loop upon themselves, meadows ripple as though breathing, and the sky drifts in surreal, shifting hues like a painting smeared mid stroke. Time and motion behave strangely, moments stretch or vanish, footsteps echo before or after they happen.

Creatures act with capricious intelligence or whimsical cruelty, as if drawn from story or dream rather than instinct. At the center, a luminous, quivering rift shimmers like a butterfly's wings, bleeding the Wyrd's enchanting, morally ambiguous energy into the Aria, leaving behind a sense of wonder tinged with unease.

Points of Silence

Linked to the Hush, the primeval void of absence and stillness. Around these points, the world feels muted and inert: sounds falter, motion hesitates, and light seems to dull, as if reality itself is held in suspense. Air carries no vibration, and even wind and water hesitate in unnerving pauses.

Objects and terrain behave unnaturally near these points. Water pools without ripple, fires sputter and dim, and trees or plants cease growth or move in unnervingly slow, deliberate ways. Creatures lose initiative or reaction, acting sluggishly or freezing mid-motion, as if caught in the void between notes of existence.

At the heart of a Point of Silence lies the rift itself: an unbroken, impossibly still expanse of shadow or pale void, radiating the Hush's influence outward. Its presence suppresses all resonance, unweaving magic, sound, and life's momentum alike, creating a zone where even the most vibrant energy falters, as if existence itself is held in the silent waiting of the void.

Points of Convergence

Vast zones where the energies of all planes: Hymn, Clamor, Wyrd, Kiln, Aria, and even the Hush, intersect and mingle, locked in constant friction. Landscapes shift unpredictably between ordered geometry and chaotic upheaval; rivers flow in perfect arcs one moment and spiral torrents the next. Air, sound, and weather pulse with the rhythm of creation itself.

At the heart of each Point of Convergence lies a World Rift, a titanic fracture in reality through which the Chorus's raw, multi-planar energy bleeds into the Aria, constantly reshaping its edges and radiating influence for dozens if not hundreds of kilometers, subtly warping matter, perception, and even time. Most creatures cannot survive within Points of Convergence, as the raw, unfiltered arcana streaming from its World Rift overwhelms body and mind alike, tearing at flesh, thought, and instinct. Those who do endure are almost always of chorally attuned lineage, blessed, bound, or otherwise immune to the multiplanar insurgence that would rend ordinary mortals apart.

To date, only two Points of Convergence are known to exist: the Shattered Spire on Nimoria, with its world rift; the Wound of the World, that formed in the First Shattering, and the smaller Ashnavel Crevace, birthed by the more recent Second Shattering that ended the Cinderfall War, located in the Ashnavel Region on the continent of Esternia.

Should a third World Rift manifest in Yoren, the outcome would be cataclysmic, threatening the destruction of the Aria and potentially the Grand Song itself as a whole.