Scherbenmark Lore
Shard Domain
Floating islands, shattered cities, and arcane time-fractures ruled by a mage who sees the world in broken timelines.
inspect domain --name shard_domain
Profile & Tone
- Biome: Floating rock islands, shattered cities, open mana rifts, scarred landscape
- Mood: Arcane post-disaster, experimental magic, “what if?” realities
Ruler: The Archon of Shards
Name: Magister Cael Varion
Type: Human mage, fused with mana and time
Background:
- Former council mage, one of the few who truly understood how close the Shattering was.
- Attempted a last-second counter-ritual that tore apart his linear perception of time.
- Now sees the world in fragments – shards of past and future, all at once.
Motivation:
- Wants to create an “optimized” version of Mornhollow where key catastrophes never happened.
- Is willing to cut entire islands out of reality to achieve this.
Domain Curse
“Arcane Aftermath”
- Every powerful spell leaves behind an astral echo that can resurface later – amplified, distorted, or in a different place.
Time distortions:
- Zones with different time speeds or time loops.
- A village that lives through the same day over and over.
- A tower where the inhabitants age in slow motion.
Magical instability:
- Casting spells can trigger wild-magic effects, even for spells that are usually stable.
scan locations --domain shard_domain
Key Locations
- City of Shards: Center of the domain; floating ruins, improvised bridges, arcane-powered lifts; traders in spell components, relics, and spellbooks from all eras.
- Varion Tower: Seat of the Archon; interiors organized by timelines and choices, not geometry; sometimes you meet earlier or later versions of the same NPC.
- The Arcane Rift: Huge wound in the earth from which raw mana pours; artifacts, monsters, and mutations arise nearby.
- The Timeless Archive: Library where books appear before they’re written or long after their authors have died.
Iconic NPCs
Serra Althin, Shard Cartographer
- Role: Researcher who maps distortions in time and space.
- Motivation: Prove that the Shattering can at least be reversed locally.
- Secret: She comes from a future version of Mornhollow that will never happen if the Archon succeeds.
Gorim 7, Golem with an Overwrite Error
- Role: Arcane golem created as the Archon’s servant; holds memories from six previous “versions.”
- Motivation: Understand why his predecessors were discarded; attain freedom.
- Secret: Contains a key fragment of one of the first counter-rituals attempted during the Shattering.
Stories & Conflicts
- Island districts disappear or return altered when timelines collide.
- Scholars and scavengers compete for artifacts brought up from the Arcane Rift.
- The Archon's search for a perfect timeline threatens everyone living in the imperfect present.