The Veil thinned within living memory. The Aether poured through. The Engine woke in response. Now the world is caught between two forces that nobody fully understands, and the old certainties are gone. Welcome to the mess. Here’s what you need to know.

Before the Tear

Your grandparents remember a different world. Industrial. Confident. Steam and steel, telegraph wires and rail lines, factories and foundries. Governments held territory. Armies held borders. The rules of power were understood, if not always fair.

Occult societies existed — parlor spiritualists, hedge scholars poring over old texts, secret clubs performing rituals by candlelight — but they were curiosities. Entertainment for the bored rich, or obsessions of the unwell. Magic was not real.

The world was not a paradise. Labor was exploited. Those with power extracted wealth from those without. Organized crime followed money wherever it pooled. But it was ordered. People understood the shape of things. Technology was advancing. The trajectory was clear.

Then the Veil thinned, and the trajectory shattered.

The Tear

It was not gradual. Within a span of months — accounts vary, records are incomplete, and much of the infrastructure for record-keeping was destroyed in the event itself — the Veil thinned across the world. The Aether poured through. The effects were catastrophic and uneven.

The Land Changed

Entire regions transformed. Settled heartlands erupted into vast mystical forests and wild plains. The ground itself changed — flora that had never existed before grew overnight. Creatures that belonged in legend appeared in the underbrush. Communities in these areas weren’t destroyed so much as displaced in kind — cut off from the industrial world, thrown backward in technology but thrust forward into magical wonder.

The Cities Fractured

Urban districts experienced sudden, violent Aetheric saturation. Neighborhoods where the Veil thinned most saw machines fail, infrastructure collapse, and reality grow soft. These zones didn’t stabilize — they settled, becoming permanent Aetheric enclaves within cities. The people living in and around them were cast back into low-technology societies, but with access to magic their grandparents would have called impossible.

People Changed

Some individuals discovered they could feel the Aether — could shape it, channel it, bend it toward intention. The first wild casters emerged, untrained and dangerous, performing feats of wonder and destruction in equal measure. Governments, churches, and institutions had no framework for this. Fear and awe competed in the streets.

The Old Order Buckled

Trade routes crossed zones that were no longer navigable by machine. Military supply lines collapsed where Aetheric saturation killed engines. Communication networks — telegraph, early radio — became unreliable in affected areas. The governments that had held territory through infrastructure suddenly found that infrastructure was the very thing failing them.

The Engine Awakes

Within a decade — possibly less, possibly more, nobody kept clean records during the chaos — the Engine emerged.

Whether the Engine awoke on its own, was always there and simply became perceptible once it had something to push against, or was manufactured by someone who figured out how to weaponize the world’s counter-resonance — this is debated. Violently. There are three competing theories, and none of them have been proven.

What is not debated: Galvanic technology appeared. Devices that channeled a force opposed to the Aether. Exotic prototypes that could push back the magic, stabilize zones, and restore machinery to function. These devices were crude, expensive, dangerous, and immediately the most valuable things in the world.

The people and institutions with access to Galvanic technology gained enormous leverage — practically overnight. Industrial conglomerates that had been losing ground to the Aether suddenly had tools to reclaim it. Governments that had been retreating from Wild Zones could now, slowly, push back. And opportunists of every stripe realized that controlling the production of Galvanic devices meant controlling the balance of power itself.

The World Now

The Tear was within living memory. The counter-response is even more recent. The world has not recovered — it has reorganized, messily, incompletely, and without consensus.

Fragmented, Not at War

The nations that existed before the Tear still claim their old borders, but claiming and controlling are different things. Entire regions are Wild Zones that no conventional military can hold. Supply lines are fragile. Tax collection requires roads, and roads require zone stability.

The world is balkanized. Not at war — fragmented. Small groups with enough magic, enough Galvanic backing, or enough sheer will have carved out sovereign territories. A factory district fortified by Galvanic dead zones. A neighborhood reborn as an Aetheric commune. A prophet’s growing settlement in the unclaimed wild. A criminal syndicate that runs the border zones because nobody else will. These enclaves exist alongside — and inside — the remnants of the old governments, competing for resources, influence, and the loyalty of the people living in between.

Prophets in the Land

The Tear shattered the old certainties. In the vacuum, charismatic figures are building movements. Some preach the Aether as salvation — a return to something real and primal. Others preach the Engine as humanity’s righteous defense. Still others preach that both forces are punishment for sins, or tests from gods, or tools to be mastered.

These movements range from genuine spiritual awakenings to cynical power grabs, and telling the difference is not always easy. The most successful prophets have figured out that ideology alone doesn’t hold territory — you need zone control. An Aetheric prophet who can maintain a Wild Zone around their settlement has a natural fortress. A Galvanic preacher who keeps the Engine humming has technology that makes their people’s lives materially better than the chaos outside.

Stories Start Local

Communication exists — telegraph and radio work in neutral and Galvanic zones. Newspapers print. Couriers ride. Information moves — but so do rumors, propaganda, and deliberate misinformation. The further from your own territory a report originates, the less you can verify it.

Most people’s experience of the world is their own city, their own district, their own stretch of road. The grand machinations of the powerful and the strange wonders at the edges of the map are things people hear about — from travelers, from broadsheets, from drunks in taverns.

Adventure is not far away. A Wild Zone encroaching on a factory district. A smuggler moving Galvanic parts through an Aetheric neighborhood. A prophet whose commune is growing suspiciously fast. A dead zone that appeared overnight where there shouldn’t be one. A letter from a relative in a region that went dark three months ago. The world does not require epic quests to generate adventure — the instability is everywhere, and the people who deal with it are Adventuring Societies.

Rumors & Wonders

Nobody has a complete map of the world anymore. It changed too fast, too unevenly, and the people with resources to map it are too busy fighting over what’s left. What follows is what people talk about — in taverns, in broadsheets, in the briefing rooms of Adventuring Societies. Some of it is true. Some of it is exaggerated. Some of it is completely wrong.

The Reclaimed Wild

Vast stretches of what was once settled land have been swallowed by the Aether. Where there were farms, there are now forests that shouldn’t exist: trees that grow too fast, undergrowth that shifts when you’re not looking, clearings where the air hums with power. The wildlife is wrong — too large, too clever, too still.

The people who lived in these regions didn’t all leave. Communities that stayed have adapted — or been adapted. They live in the Wild now, and many have no interest in being “rescued” by the governments that abandoned them. Travelers who cross the Reclaimed Wild report that the deeper you go, the less the old rules apply. Compasses spin. Clocks run wrong. Distances don’t add up. And every so often, someone comes back with stories of structures in the deep forest — not ruins, but buildings that were never built by human hands.

The Fractured Cities

Most major cities survived the Tear — but not intact. A typical city now is a patchwork: districts that are functionally neutral, districts that have tipped Aetheric, districts fortified into Galvanic enclaves, and the messy gradient borders between them.

An Aetheric district might look like a neighborhood from two centuries ago — gas lamps, cobblestone, market stalls — because modern infrastructure fails there. But the healer on the corner can mend a broken bone with a touch, and the locksmith’s wards are literally impenetrable. The people here aren’t backward — they’re differently advanced.

A Galvanic district hums. The lights are brighter, the machines run cleaner, the air tastes faintly of ozone. Factories produce devices that would have been science fiction a generation ago. The cost is that nothing magical works within the zone. Security is tight. The corporations that run these districts don’t appreciate uninvited visitors.

The Archipelago of Wonders

Sailors and coastal traders talk about an island chain — somewhere offshore, distance and direction vary with the telling — where technology has reached heights the mainland can only dream of. Towers of steel and glass. Ships that move without sails or engines. Lights that never dim.

Some call it a new Atlantis. Others call it a military installation. A few say it’s not Galvanic at all — that the islands float, and the force holding them up isn’t the Engine but something older.

What is not in dispute: something is out there. Ships that venture too far offshore encounter zones of extreme saturation — Galvanic or Aetheric or both, in patterns that shouldn’t be possible. Compasses behave strangely. Radio signals bounce off enormous metallic structures. And occasionally, wreckage washes ashore — components made of alloys that no mainland forge has produced.

The Deep Zones

At the extremes of the spectrum — places where accumulation has been building for decades with nothing to push back — the world stops resembling anything familiar.

Deep Wild Zones are places where the Veil is barely there. Reality is negotiable. Geography shifts. Time moves strangely. Expeditions return with artifacts of extraordinary power, knowledge that reshapes entire fields of study, and psychological scars that don’t always heal. Some expeditions don’t return at all.

Deep Galvanic Zones are places where the Engine roars so loudly that the Aether can’t be heard at all. Massive foundries, research complexes, and military installations operate at the bleeding edge of what Galvanic technology can achieve. Casters who enter report a sensation like going deaf, or like a limb going numb.

The Currents

People disagree about what the Aether and the Engine mean. These disagreements shape politics, faction allegiances, and the missions your Society will be asked to carry out. There are three broad currents of thought. Nobody carries a membership card. These are directions people lean — philosophical tendencies that shape how individuals and communities respond to the world’s central tension.

The Restoration

The Aether is a catastrophe. The Engine is the response. The world was better before, and it can be better again — if we push back the magic and restore the order that was lost. This view is popular among industrialists, military hardliners, old-guard officials, and anyone whose wealth or identity was built on the pre-Tear order.

In practice, Restorationist factions fund Galvanic research, clear Wild Zones for redevelopment, and treat magic users with suspicion. Their prophets preach the Engine as humanity’s righteous answer to an alien intrusion. The most extreme believe the Aether must be destroyed entirely, not just pushed back.

The Awakening

The Aether is not a catastrophe — it is a revelation. The Veil thinned because it was meant to. The world before the Tear was diminished, cut off from something vast and ancient. Magic is a return to wholeness. The Engine is the aberration.

This view is popular among casters, communities in the Reclaimed Wild, occult scholars, and romantic revolutionaries who see magic as liberation from industrial exploitation. Their prophets are the most visually dramatic — some have genuine magical ability, which gives their preaching a persuasive edge. They perform wonders. They heal. They call down light. The question is whether their message is genuine spiritual leadership or the oldest con in history: miracles as marketing.

The Arrangement

Both forces are here to stay. The Aether isn’t going away. The Engine isn’t going away. Arguing about which one is right is a waste of time and resources. The question that matters is: who controls the balance, and who profits from it?

This is the view of pragmatist governments trying to hold fractured cities together, corporations that sell to both sides, organized crime, smugglers, and most Adventuring Societies — whose members carry swords, guns, and spells because ideology doesn’t stop a monster.

Factions You Might Encounter

The world is full of organizations carving out territory and pursuing agendas. What follows are examples — the kinds of groups that exist in most cities, the tensions they embody, and the secrets they keep. Your GM’s world will have its own versions. The names and details will change. The structures and tensions won’t.

The Ashworth Foundry Collective

Restoration, strong. An industrial conglomerate that consolidated three factory districts after the Tear. They produce Galvanic components — the capacitors, resonance coils, and stabilizers that other manufacturers need — and have leveraged this into enormous economic power.

They want to expand their Galvanic dead zone to encompass the entire industrial quarter, pushing out Aetheric influence and the communities that depend on it. They fund zone containment research and hire Adventuring Societies to clear Aetheric incursions near their facilities.

What they don’t advertise: their expansion isn’t just commercial. They’ve been deliberately intensifying the Galvanic field beyond what production requires, pushing the dead zone outward into adjacent neighborhoods. Residents in the border areas report headaches, insomnia, a persistent hum in the bones. The Collective calls it “adjustment symptoms.” The residents call it poisoning.

The Veilwright Quarter

Awakening, moderate. A city district that tipped Aetheric during the Tear and never came back. The residents rebuilt around magic — healing, warding, divination, enchantment. The Quarter is self-governing by necessity; the city government can’t project authority into a zone where their equipment fails.

They want to be left alone. Failing that, to be recognized as a legitimate district — not treated as a containment problem or a slum to be cleared. Their economy runs on magical services: sell healing and warding to the wider city, barter and service exchange internally. They maintain their own militia of trained casters who patrol the zone border.

What the outside doesn’t know: the Aetheric saturation isn’t entirely natural anymore. A small circle of senior casters performs sustained rituals to maintain the zone’s strength — preventing the gradual decay that would bring it back toward neutral. They believe a strong zone is the only thing protecting the Quarter from being bulldozed. They’re probably right. But the rituals are pulling the zone deeper than it’s ever been.

The Lamplighter Syndicate

Arrangement, pure. An organized crime network that controls smuggling across zone borders. They move Galvanic components into Aetheric zones and magical goods into Galvanic zones. They also run protection, gambling, and information brokerage — but the smuggling is the backbone.

They want the status quo. A fragmented, balkanized world with porous zone borders is the perfect operating environment. Any faction that threatens to stabilize things threatens the Syndicate’s business model. Their great skill is operating below the detection threshold — keeping their zone impact small enough to avoid forensic attention.

What nobody knows: the boss — known only as “the Lamplighter” — has been quietly acquiring Aetheric artifacts of significant power. Whether this is a hedge, an insurance policy, or preparation for something bigger, even the Syndicate’s lieutenants don’t know.

The Ironveil Circle

Cross-pressured — Restoration and Awakening simultaneously. A religious institution that predates the Tear. The church was a pillar of the old order: hospitals, schools, orphanages, spiritual authority. When the Tear hit, the institution fractured along a theological fault line nobody saw coming.

They run the hospitals, the orphanages, the soup kitchens — the infrastructure of mercy that every faction depends on and none want to fund. They maintain sanctuaries kept deliberately neutral through a combination of Galvanic dampeners and Aetheric warding — proving, in practice, that the two forces can coexist.

What tears at them: one faction within the church believes the Aether is demonic and wants to align with the Restoration. Another believes the Tear was divine revelation and wants to embrace the Aether. Both fund their own Adventuring Societies with contradictory mandates. The leadership knows and cannot stop it.

And Others…

The world is full of groups like these. Here are a few more you might encounter — or use as inspiration for your own.

Faction	Current	What They Are	The Tension
Thornfield Communion	Awakening	A prophet-led settlement in the Reclaimed Wild, built around communion with the Veil. Self-sufficient, growing, and increasingly selective about who they let in.	Mother Thorn’s connection to the Aether is real — but it may not be what she says it is. The warded perimeter isn’t just keeping threats out.
Greycoat Authority	Arrangement	The remnant of a city’s civil service and constabulary. They control the neutral zone and claim jurisdiction over everything else — with diminishing credibility.	They’re broke. Funding comes from increasingly questionable deals with factions they’re supposed to be regulating.
Gradient Scholars	Awakening (academic)	An independent research institute on a zone border, studying both forces. They train casters and engineers and fund Societies for artifact recovery and zone cartography.	A research team sent into the Deep Wild went silent after reporting structures that appeared to be communicating. The leadership has classified the report.
The Sootborn	None	Communities living in the gradient — the border zones where both forces bleed together. The world’s best zone navigators. Fiercely independent.	Some Sootborn have developed an unusual sensitivity to the balance — something that doesn’t fit either paradigm. They don’t talk about it with outsiders.

Reading the Zones

The zone system isn’t just a combat modifier. It is the political geography of the setting. Zones are territory. Zones are power. Zones are the physical evidence of who controls what and how hard they’re pushing.

Territory You Can See

Every faction that operates at scale leaves a zone signature. A Galvanic weapons factory pushes its surroundings into a dead zone. A casters’ commune radiates Aetheric saturation. A smuggling operation keeps its footprint deliberately small to stay below the detection threshold. The zone map of a city is, in effect, a political map — you can read the power structure by walking the gradients.

This means expansion is detectable. When a factory intensifies its Galvanic field, the neighboring districts feel it before any announcement is made. The balance shifts. Radios get clearer. Compasses steady. Casters notice their spells weakening. Zone expansion is an act of aggression that the environment itself announces.

The Environment Is a Witness

Aetheric and Galvanic residue decay slowly, leaving traces that trained investigators can read. A crime scene isn’t just blood and footprints — it’s a residue map. An investigator with Detect can reconstruct the magical activity in a room, estimate when it happened, and follow the gradient to its source. This is noir detective work with an Aetheric twist.

Factions that want to avoid detection have options — all imperfect. Cast in existing Wild Zones to bury your residue in the background noise. Use lower-tier spells to minimize the trace. Operate in short bursts and disperse. But sustained, large-scale activity cannot be hidden. The zone gradient system is a world where the environment is a witness that cannot be bribed.

The Front Lines

Where a strong Galvanic zone and a strong Aetheric zone meet, the gradient is steep and the environment is unstable. These are the front lines — not of a war with armies, but of the quiet, constant pressure between paradigms.

A breeze carrying Aetheric particulate can temporarily suppress Galvanic equipment. A factory cycling up can snuff out a ward that’s been holding for months. Lights cast shadows in the wrong direction. Sounds arrive before their source. Machines run on their own, performing functions they weren’t designed for.

A character standing on a front line can literally feel the two forces pushing against each other. Their gun works intermittently. Their ward flickers. Their blade, as always, works fine. This is the messy middle — the border zone where both systems are present, neither is reliable, and the work is at its most interesting.