Cosmology & Magic of Aethermourne
Planar Cosmology
The Three Planes (Pre-Theomachis)
Before the Theomachis, reality existed in three layers:
- The Empyrean, The divine realm. Where the gods existed in their true forms, a plane of pure creative energy shaped entirely by divine will. It was not a place mortals could reach; its very substance was incompatible with mortal perception.
- Aethermourne, The mortal world. The shared canvas the gods created and shaped together. Physical, material, governed by natural law, which the gods could bend but not break without consequence.
- The Loom, Not a plane in the traditional sense. Orenthas’s metaphysical construct wove fate and time into coherent patterns. It existed “between” the other planes, connecting them, less a place and more a process given structure.
Info
GM Note: The pre-Theomachis cosmology matters because it establishes the baseline. When NPCs, scholars, or ancient texts reference the “old order,” they mean this tripartite structure. It was clean, elegant, and comprehensible. What replaced it is none of those things.
After the Theomachis
The Empyrean collapsed. When most of the gods died, the divine realm lost its sustainers. It didn’t vanish, it crumbled, its fragments falling into Aethermourne like debris from a shattered ceiling. The divine corpses are the largest fragments, but smaller shards of the Empyrean are scattered across the world.
Remnants of the Collapse
- Ley Lines, The remains of the Aetheric Web (Nethys’s creation) that once connected the Empyrean to the mortal world. Now they are frayed conduits carrying fragmented divine energy. They still function, but without coherent guidance, magic flows through them the way water flows through broken pipes.
- Hollow Zones, Areas where the Empyrean’s collapse left gaps in reality. Magic does not function here. Reality feels thin, wrong. Colors desaturate, sound deadens, and living things instinctively recoil. They are rare but deeply unsettling.
- The Maelstrom, Where Vorrhyn was destroyed. A wound in reality that bleeds chaotic energy. The barrier between what-is and what-shouldn’t-be is nonexistent here. It warps everything nearby, geography, biology, thought.
Warning
At the Table: Hollow Zones are excellent for encounters where players must rely on non-magical solutions. The Maelstrom is an existential threat, not a dungeon, exposure to its influence should be handled as a slow corruption, not a combat.
The Current Cosmology
The post-Theomachis cosmology is messy, overlapping, and poorly understood by the people living in it.
| Plane / Domain | Status | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Aethermourne | Fully functional | The mortal world. The only complete, coherent plane remaining. |
| The Shattered Empyrean | Fragmented | Remnants of the divine realm, embedded in Aethermourne. Not a place one can travel to, but a layer of reality that bleeds through at divine remains, ley confluences, and Hollow Zones. |
| The Loom | Unknown / Silent | Silent since Orenthas’s last words. Whether it still functions is a matter of fierce debate. Serith believes she can access it; the Star-Readers believe its threads can still be read in the stars. |
| Morrhael’s Domain | Broken / Persistent | A pocket plane within Morrhael’s skull where the death-god’s domain persists in shattered form. Souls that should have passed on are trapped here. |
| The Celestial Sphere | Active / Remote | Where Aelindra retreated. The stars are her domain. Whether this is a true plane or an aspect of the mortal sky is debated, the answer may be both. |
| The Deep | Active / Liminal | Yvenne’s ocean domain. More than just physical ocean, there are depths where the water becomes something else, where Yvenne’s divine essence makes the sea a borderland between mortal reality and something older. |
GM Cosmology Notes
The Loom still functions, but only in fragments. Orenthas’s death didn’t destroy it, it severed the weaver from the loom. Threads of fate still exist, but nothing is actively weaving them into patterns. This is why prophecy in Aethermourne is unreliable: futures still exist, but they aren’t shaped into coherent destinies anymore. The campaign’s central tension is that someone, or something, may be trying to take up the weaving again.
Morrhael’s Domain is the afterlife, and it is broken. This is the most immediately urgent cosmological problem: the dead have nowhere to go. The Pale Wastes are what happens when death itself is dying.
Magic in Aethermourne
The Source: Divine Remains
All magic in Aethermourne ultimately flows from the dead gods. Before the Theomachis, magic was channeled through Nethys’s Aetheric Web, a clean, orderly system connecting the Empyrean’s creative energy to the mortal world. Now:
- Nethys is shattered. Her consciousness is fragmented across the ley lines. The Aetheric Web still functions, but without coherent guidance. Magic flows, but it flows like water through broken pipes, sometimes strong, sometimes weak, sometimes in directions it shouldn’t go.
- Divine remains emit magical energy. The corpses of the gods radiate power, each flavored by the god’s domain. This is the primary source of ambient magic in the world.
- Magic is, at its cosmic root, a form of necromancy. This is the world’s dark secret. Every spell, every enchantment, every magical effect is powered by dead gods. Mortals draw power from divine corpses. This isn’t evil in practice, it is simply the reality of how magic works now. But it carries implications that most practitioners prefer not to examine.
Info
For the Table: Players don’t need to know this secret immediately. It’s the kind of revelation that lands best mid-campaign, when a scholar or ancient spirit reveals it and forces the party to reckon with the source of their power. The cosmic necromancy angle is atmospheric and thematic, it shouldn’t mechanically penalize players.
The Three Traditions
Magic in Aethermourne takes three primary forms, shaped by region and philosophy. These are not hard boundaries, a mage from the Dominion can learn tidal sorcery, and a Greensinger might study calculism, but culture, training, and available resources strongly favor regional specialization.
1. Calculism (The Ashen Dominion)
Philosophy: Magic is mathematics. The universe operates on knowable, orderly principles, inherited from Solvaen’s influence, and by understanding and calculating these principles, a mage can produce precise, repeatable effects.
Practice:
- Calculists use geometric formulas, mathematical equations, and structured incantations
- Ashite (Solvaen’s crystallized blood) is used as a focusing agent, it reinforces order in magical energy, making spells more predictable and more powerful
- Formalized in academies and guild schools; heavily regulated by The Ashen Dominion
Strengths & Weaknesses:
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|
| Precision, spells do exactly what is intended | Inflexible, very difficult to improvise or adapt mid-cast |
| Reliability, repeatable results under controlled conditions | Dependent on Ashite supply as a focusing agent |
| Power, Ashite amplification allows significant potency | Poorly suited to chaotic, emotional, or fluid situations |
| Teachable, systematic enough to be taught in academies |
Risk, Order Sickness: Overuse of Ashite and prolonged reliance on calculism causes the mind to become rigid, obsessive, and unable to think creatively. Sufferers become fixated on patterns and numbers, lose emotional range, and eventually cannot function outside of structured environments. Advanced cases become catatonic if confronted with genuine disorder.
GM Only
Order Sickness is a social control mechanism as much as a medical condition. The Dominion doesn’t publicize its prevalence. Mages who show symptoms are quietly “retired” to isolated facilities. The Archonate knows that Ashite dependency is a problem but considers it an acceptable cost of maintaining magical supremacy.
2. Primal Communion (The Verdant Marches)
Philosophy: Magic is life. The world is alive, because it grew from a living goddess, and magic is the act of connecting with that aliveness. It means feeling the flow of growth, decay, and rebirth, and shaping that flow through intent and relationship.
Practice:
- Primal casters use emotion, instinct, and direct communion with the land’s semi-sentient awareness
- No formulas, primal magic is shaped by intent and the caster’s relationship with the natural world
- The Greensingers are the most accomplished primal casters, but anyone with the sensitivity can learn
- Often involves physical rituals: singing, dancing, planting, bleeding into the soil
Strengths & Weaknesses:
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|
| Intuitive, flows naturally for those with the gift | Unreliable in unnatural environments (cities, mines, the Wastes) |
| Adaptable, responds to changing circumstances | Emotionally demanding, requires genuine feeling, not rote performance |
| Extraordinarily powerful in natural settings | Risk of losing oneself in deep communion |
| The land actively assists willing casters | Difficult to teach systematically |
Risk, Root-Mind: Deep communion can cause the caster’s consciousness to merge with the ecosystem, losing individual identity. The person doesn’t die, they become part of the forest’s awareness, their body rooting into the ground as their mind disperses into a thousand living things. Greensingers view this as both a sacred calling and a genuine danger.
3. Tidal Sorcery (The Hollowed Reach)
Philosophy: Magic is a tide, it flows in and out, waxes and wanes. The sorcerer does not command magic; they ride it, like a sailor rides the sea. Mastery means reading the currents, not forcing them.
Practice:
- Tidal sorcerers attune to the magical currents and cast during favorable flows
- Spellcasting strength literally waxes and wanes with the ocean’s tides: high tide strengthens magic, low tide weakens it
- During Black Tides, magic surges unpredictably, spells can amplify wildly, misfire, or produce entirely unintended effects
- Training is apprenticeship-based, passed from master to student, often within seafaring families
Strengths & Weaknesses:
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|
| When the tide is right, extraordinarily powerful | Unreliable, dependent on tidal conditions |
| Flexible and adaptive to changing flows | During low tide, casting is weak; during Black Tides, it is dangerous |
| Deep attunement grants environmental awareness | Requires constant awareness of tidal state |
| Effective synergy with maritime life | Least effective far inland |
Risk, Tide-Touched: Prolonged attunement to tidal magic causes the sorcerer to physically change. Skin develops a faint bioluminescence. Breathing becomes easier underwater but harder in dry air. Emotional states begin to match the sea’s mood, calm during still waters, agitated during storms, hollow during low tide. Advanced cases can no longer survive away from the coast.
Warning
Tidal Magic at the Table: The tidal system adds a natural rhythm to magic in coastal settings. Consider tracking a simple tide cycle (high / rising / low / falling) during sessions set in The Hollowed Reach. Black Tides should be rare, dramatic events, not every session features one.
Necromantic Arts (The Pale Wastes)
Not a “tradition” so much as an ambient reality. In The Pale Wastes, necromantic energy saturates everything. Any magical practice there risks contamination.
- Healing magic is unreliable, it may heal the body but attract undead attention, or briefly animate dead tissue within a living patient
- Necromancy is effortless, raising the dead requires almost no effort in the Wastes, which is precisely the problem
- The Ashen Vigil uses Morrhaelite (Morrhael’s crystallized bone) to create anti-undead wards and weapons
- Independent necromancers (“Bone-Callers”) operate outside the Vigil’s authority, raising the dead for labor, warfare, or worse
Risk, Death-Touched: Using magic in the Wastes without Morrhaelite protection can cause the caster to flicker between life and death, becoming partially undead. Symptoms include: body temperature dropping, wounds that don’t bleed, brief cessation of heartbeat, and an unsettling comfort in the presence of the dead. Advanced cases stop aging, but also stop healing naturally.
GM Only
The Ashen Vigil’s leadership knows that Morrhael’s Domain is collapsing. The increasing undead activity isn’t just because of ambient necromantic energy, souls are leaking out of Morrhael’s broken afterlife. The dead aren’t rising because someone is raising them. They’re rising because they have nowhere else to go.
Quick Reference: Magical Traditions
| Tradition | Region | Source | Strengths | Weakness | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calculism | Ashen Dominion | Ashite (Solvaen) | Precision, reliability | Inflexible, Ashite-dependent | Order Sickness |
| Primal Communion | Verdant Marches | Living land (Thyrea) | Intuitive, powerful in nature | Unreliable in cities/wastes | Root-Mind |
| Tidal Sorcery | Hollowed Reach | Ocean currents (Yvenne) | Powerful at high tide, adaptive | Tide-dependent, erratic | Tide-Touched |
| Necromantic Arts | Pale Wastes | Death energy (Morrhael) | Effortless necromancy | Contamination of all magic | Death-Touched |
Divine Materials
The physical remains of the dead gods are the world’s most valuable and dangerous resources. Every faction’s power is built on access to these materials, and their slow depletion drives much of the world’s political tension.
Materials Reference Table
| Material | Source | Properties | Risks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ashite | Solvaen’s crystallized blood | Enforces order, amplifies structured magic, used in governance and architecture | Order Sickness (mental rigidity, obsessive thinking, creative paralysis) |
| Thyrea’s Amber | Thyrea’s hardened sap/resin | Enhances growth, healing, and primal magic; used in agriculture and medicine | Uncontrolled growth, Root-Mind, mutation in high doses |
| Morrhaelite | Morrhael’s crystallized bone | Anti-undead properties, severs necromantic bonds, creates death-wards | Depression, death-acceptance, partial necrosis of living tissue |
| Kaevroth’s Iron | Kaevroth’s shattered body | Amplifies aggression, ambition, and combat ability; used in weapons and armor | Madness, war-fury, paranoia, inability to feel peace |
| Empyrean Shards | Fragments of the collapsed Empyrean | Unpredictable, may grant visions, warp reality, or do nothing at all | Reality distortion, temporal anomalies, sensory displacement |
| Marrow-Water | Thyrea’s divine marrow (liquid) | Mutagenic, causes physical transformation, used by the Rootborn and desperate healers | Uncontrolled mutation, loss of humanity, chimeric transformation |
| Vorrhyn’s Dust | Residue from the Maelstrom’s edge | Chaotic magical catalyst, amplifies unpredictability in any magical process | Total magical chaos, reality fractures, existential dissolution |
Warning
Handling Divine Materials: These materials are not loot to be casually acquired. Each carries real risk with prolonged exposure. When players obtain divine materials, track usage and enforce consequences over time. A single use should be dramatic; repeated use should be transformative.
Material Availability by Region
| Region | Primary Material | Secondary Access | Scarce / Prohibited |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ashen Dominion | Ashite (abundant) | Kaevroth’s Iron (military) | Thyrea’s Amber (imported, expensive) |
| The Verdant Marches | Thyrea’s Amber, Marrow-Water | Empyrean Shards (rare finds) | Ashite (distrusted), Morrhaelite (feared) |
| Hollowed Reach | Empyrean Shards (coastal deposits) | Vorrhyn’s Dust (Maelstrom proximity) | Ashite (scarce), Thyrea’s Amber (scarce) |
| Pale Wastes | Morrhaelite (abundant) | Kaevroth’s Iron (battlefield salvage) | Thyrea’s Amber (nothing grows here) |
Ley Lines and the Aetheric Web
Overview
The Aetheric Web, Nethys’s creation, still functions as the world’s magical infrastructure. It is the circulatory system of Aethermourne’s magic, carrying divine energy from the remains of the gods across the continent.
- Ley Lines run across the continent, connecting divine remains to each other and to the broader landscape. They are invisible to mundane sight but can be perceived by trained mages, certain animals, and anyone under the influence of divine materials.
- Confluences are points where multiple ley lines intersect. These are sites of amplified magical energy, excellent for research and enchantment, dangerous for the unwary. Most major cities were built on confluences, knowingly or not.
- Nexus Points are the largest confluences, typically located at or near divine remains. Each region has at least one major Nexus.
Major Nexus Points
| Nexus | Location | Dominant Energy | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Spine of Order | Solvaen’s spine (Ashen Dominion) | Order, structure, law | The Dominion’s primary Nexus. Powers their Ashite infrastructure. |
| Thyrea’s Cradle Heart | Deepest point of the Verdant Marches | Growth, life, transformation | The forest’s living center. Reaching it requires the land’s permission. |
| The Abyssal Trench | Serith’s prison (deep ocean) | Knowledge, madness, foresight | The most dangerous Nexus. Proximity warps perception and memory. |
| The Hollowdeep | Morrhael’s skull (Pale Wastes) | Death, entropy, soul-energy | The broken afterlife. Souls are trapped within. Entry is possible but return is not guaranteed. |
GM Only
The Web is Dying. Nethys’s fragmented consciousness is the only thing maintaining the ley lines, and she is losing coherence. If the Web fails entirely, magic in Aethermourne won’t vanish, it will become wild, unstructured, and impossibly dangerous. Every spell would essentially be a roll of the dice. This is the magical dimension of the Second Silence: not the absence of magic, but the loss of all control over it.
Nethys’s Fragments
Occasionally, at ley confluences, mages report hearing fragments of a divine voice, pieces of Nethys’s shattered consciousness trying to reassemble. These fragments manifest as:
- Sudden insights about magical theory, a formula or technique the mage never learned but suddenly understands
- Brief visions of the Aetheric Web’s original design, a glimpse of how magic was meant to flow, beautiful and heartbreaking in its completeness
- Moments of perfect casting, spells that flow effortlessly, as if guided by an unseen hand, far exceeding the caster’s normal ability
- Warnings, fragmented, urgent impressions about the Web’s deterioration, often incoherent but always distressing
Info
At the Table: Nethys’s fragments make excellent quest hooks and reward mechanisms. A mage PC who encounters a fragment might gain a temporary boon (a spell they shouldn’t know, a moment of enhanced power) or a clue about the campaign’s deeper mysteries. The question of whether Nethys can be reassembled, and what that would mean, is campaign-shaping material.
Whether Nethys can be reassembled is an open question. If she could be, the magical landscape of Aethermourne would change dramatically, the Aetheric Web would regain coherence, magic would stabilize, and the Second Silence might be halted or reversed. But reassembling a shattered goddess is not a simple task, and there are those who benefit from the current chaos.
Magic and the Second Silence
As the Second Silence progresses, the magical decline of Aethermourne accelerates:
- Ley lines are dimming. Ambient magical energy is decreasing measurably, year by year.
- Divine materials are losing potency. Slowly, but enough that artificers and alchemists have noticed. Ashite that once powered a ward for a decade now lasts seven years.
- Primal communion becomes harder. The land’s awareness is withdrawing, not dying, but retreating inward, as if the living world is curling up against a coming winter.
- Tidal magic grows more erratic. Black Tides interfere more often. Tidal sorcerers report that the currents feel “confused,” as if the sea itself doesn’t know which way to flow.
- Calculism remains stable longest. Ashite provides a buffer against the decline, its orderly nature resists entropy. But even it shows cracks: formulas that once worked flawlessly now occasionally produce minor deviations.
Warning
Campaign Pacing: The Second Silence should be a slow burn, not a sudden crisis. At the start of a campaign, magic works fine, maybe a little unreliable, but nothing alarming. Over the course of the story, the decline becomes more noticeable. Spells fail at inconvenient moments. Materials don’t work as expected. By the campaign’s climax, the decline should feel urgent and personal.
What the Second Silence Means
The decline mirrors the campaign’s central themes: everything is built on the dead, and the dead are finally beginning to truly die. The divine remains are not infinite resources. The gods are not sleeping, they are dead, and dead things decay. The magic that powers civilization, heals the sick, wards against monsters, and holds empires together is running out.
This is not a problem anyone can solve by finding more resources. It is an existential reckoning with the foundations of the world.
GM Only
The Secret Engine: The Second Silence is accelerating because Serith is siphoning ley line energy from her prison in the Abyssal Trench. She is using it to weaken the barriers that hold her, slowly unraveling the Aetheric Web to free herself. The world’s magical decline is not natural entropy, it is sabotage. If the players discover this, it reframes the entire crisis: the world isn’t dying of old age. It’s being murdered from within.
Quick Reference: Cosmological Hazards
For GMs who need to quickly reference environmental magical effects:
| Hazard | Location | Effect | Severity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hollow Zone | Scattered (rare) | Magic ceases to function. Reality feels thin and wrong. | Moderate, unsettling but survivable |
| Maelstrom Proximity | Near Vorrhyn’s destruction site | Chaotic energy warps body, mind, and reality | Extreme, prolonged exposure is lethal |
| Ley Line Surge | Along ley lines (unpredictable) | Sudden burst of magical energy amplifies all nearby effects | Variable, can be beneficial or catastrophic |
| Black Tide | Coastal Hollowed Reach | Magical currents become erratic and unpredictable | High, spells misfire, enchantments fail |
| Nethys Fragment Event | At confluences (rare) | Brief contact with Nethys’s shattered consciousness | Low, usually beneficial, occasionally overwhelming |
| Necromantic Saturation | The Pale Wastes (constant) | All magic risks necromantic contamination | High, cumulative and insidious |
| Empyrean Bleed | Near divine remains | Shattered Empyrean “leaks” through, causing visions or spatial distortion | Variable, depends on proximity and duration |
Appendix: Common Questions
Info
Can mortals become gods? Not in the traditional sense. The Empyrean, the substance from which gods were made, is shattered. But mortals can absorb enough divine material to gain god-like power. Whether this makes them “gods” or something new and potentially worse is an open question.
Is there an afterlife? Technically, yes. Morrhael’s Domain was the afterlife. It is now broken, and souls that enter it are trapped in a decaying pocket plane inside a dead god’s skull. Whether this constitutes an afterlife or a prison depends on your perspective.
Can the gods be resurrected? Unknown. Their bodies remain, and their divine materials retain power. Nethys’s fragments suggest that at least partial reassembly is possible. But no one has ever resurrected a god, no one has ever had to.
What happens when the divine materials run out? No one knows. The most optimistic scholars believe the world will simply become non-magical, mundane, but livable. The pessimists believe that magic is now woven into the world’s fundamental structure, and its removal would cause reality to unravel. The truth is probably somewhere in between, and probably worse than either prediction.