Introduction

I want to start off by saying that all of what you are about to read is Work In Progress (WIP). That being said I do feel confident in sharing what you are about to read which means I honestly don’t expect changes to be made to this in any significant way.

Now that that is out of the way, I’m so excited to finally spill some tea on the lore.

In this post I will be talking about the universe I am creating. This is a very lengthy process that I wish not to let slow down development on the game too much, as I only work or think on new lore during “off hours”. While the game will not explain much of its lore directly, it is based on the lore of this universe. In Shadows of Cal’duur, I hope to add bits and pieces that will spark player’s interest into this universe as I aim to make more games within this universe and build an IP out of it. At the end I will give you some insight as to when Shadows of Cal’duur takes place and what you can expect.

Fundamentals

There are two fundamental planes. The material plane, which is the world as we would know it. And then there is the arcane plane, called the crysalic which is where the name comes from, which basically is a void-like environment that solely exists out of an unbound energy that is looking for a purpose or a host at all times. The latter is what you could call magic.

The best way to explain the crysalic is like a copy of the volume of the material plane. Picture it like a box, and it’s filled with this energy. But the box is closed off entirely other than a passage to the material plane.

The material plane and the crysalic plane are therefore connected and both have a fill of energy. When energy gets forced from one plane into the other, the system tries to rectify that error by sending some back. This can be described similarly to the principle of communicating vessels, which you can look up if you are unfamiliar with it. So in theory if someone was to cast the most enormous spell covering an entire continent, syphoning an enormous amount of magical energy from the crysalic plane, the material plane could launch a severe earthquake trying to over pressurize stuff deep down (to void the energy inside said stuff), trees would die, fires would go out all to transfer that energy back to the crysalic plane. All in theory of course, but now you get the idea.

The idea here is that these two are in a cycle. What dies, decays, disappears or otherwise loses its energy in the material plane manifests back into the crysalic. And in turn when the crysalic is filled it will manifest the magical back into the material plane. All of this to remain balanced, as all things should be ;)

It is worth noting that the exchange of magical energy is done locally with few exceptions. This means that if a tree containing magical energy dies, the new magical energy will manifest somewhere in the area. Some of the exceptions in this rule are magical beasts, not animals but beasts. An important distinction, because magical animals are just animals who got touched by the crysalic, while magical beasts are spawn of the crysalic. And they require certain conditions to spawn in an area and don’t typically release their magical energy upon death or during decay.

Races and world map

There are Humans, there are Dwarves, and there are Darakki which is a humanoid race that grows to an average height of 1m60, ever so slightly less tall than the average human male, but the gender does not make a difference for their height compared to humans. Also… they have no finger or toe nails, to paint a bit of a picture for now.

From here we’re gonna get a little bit more organised so you have a more clear idea of where to imagine them in the grand scheme of things. I’ve drawn out a world map which I will reference from now on to situate races, talk about relations and close off by sketching the situation as of the moment when Shadows of Cal’duur takes place in its history.

Humans look exactly as you know them to look. Not much to say there. They live in a sort of medieval era. They try to science things with wood, water, and alchemy while what little warfare they do is in between themselves and usually for pride or honour, sometimes both. The empire of men, yes an empire, ultimately forms after their squabbling between settlements. This empire remains standing for as long as humans exist. This allows the humans to live rather freely and in a peaceful era. Different humans take very different paths. They are inventive and ever so curious to the mysteries of the world. But some are torn apart by their own greed for knowledge that is out of their reach. The quest for power consumes those and the Empire grows weaker and weaker trying to control or eradicate them. On the flip side, men do some of the most ground breaking of things with alchemical sciences, which stems from the place they live. They live in the plains and forests in the east. Shielded by rough ocean, mountains and a treacherous swamp they live pretty securely.

The Darakki live on the Nausolean Islands. For now not much is known about them. All I can say so far is that they have excellent archers, and have an enormous fleet of ships. The deep oceans are a dangerous place in the Crysalic universe, and they have found methods to thrive on it. They’ve built cities on some of the islands but the average Darakki spends most of their life on a ship. Their cities are mostly for trade and stockpiling resources. At the time of Shadows of Cal’duur, magic was not discovered yet and the world was still unaware of the crysalic plane, or at least they didn't understand it yet. Later however, with the discovery of magic and how to use its energy. Darakki will have a far higher attunement to the crysalic plane than the other races. Darakki will make for far more skilled mages than any other race by nature.

The dwarves live mainly in a large, long canyon to the east of the mountains that are laid out central on the map. There they have water that comes from the mountains forming a river. This is important to them because it gives them both transport between cities, but also power. The dwarves rely on steam pressure to power their cities. They discovered early that coal and wood isn’t very efficient or plentiful for them but the discovery of a blue gem which, when put under pressure, creates heat coming from the edges of the crystal. The sharper the edge the more of the heat it excretes. You read that right, the total amount of heat is determined by the pressure applied, and thus more or less heat is sprouted from an edge if the edge is sharp or not. And that’s all for now on these gems ;) This process allowed them to create steam pressure very easily and for relatively cheap as these gems can be honed to be extremely effective. Dwarves are stubborn, hard headed folk, they are set in their ways of living and they don’t fancy change. Change takes a toll on their happiness and takes a long time to settle. However they are tinkering folk. They science the heck out of almost anything. They are amazing engineers, and they have the best smiths.

Unfortunately their efforts are driven by an endless war that plagues their lands. West of their canyon, the dwarves have plenty of fortresses in those mountains that bolsters them from the demons that come from the Northern wastes. The northern war is a terribly brutal one, and the dwarves are barely holding their lines. Between the unrelenting frosts of the mountains and the unwavering tide of beasts that flood from the north, there is no picking which is worse. Their smithing and technologies has beefed up the Dwarven army so much so that they may hold the line in time before they run out of soldiers, but only barely in time. The dwarven army is now few in numbers but highly specialised and has, by now, almost 40 years of experience in the field. Over the first 10 years of the now 38 years lasting conflict as of the time of Shadows of Cal’duur, their population had lowered by a staggering 45%. Rebuilding their civilization was at the top of their priority list after that and they managed to do just that. They became a proud, inventive and advanced civilization.

Political relations

This one is a little shorter. As not too much is thought out yet. What I can tell you so far is that almost every race is in some sort of trade with each other. Though The Dwarves have better trade with the humans than they do with the Darakki as the Humans can get to the Darakki by themselves but the Darakki have to get to the Dwarves and on top of that do they have to get through a rather dangerous swamp to pick up and escort goods from the Dwarves. This is… cumbersome for them, though the Humans charge a lot to be the middleman for them, so only for the most expensive goods they will go through the effort of getting it by themselves. This would mainly be weapons or munitions in their case. This is because the Dwarves have the best weapons in all the lands but they also need them for themselves to fuel the northern conflict, raising their price significantly. Things like for example the tools they make will likely go through the Humans.

The Darakki and the Dwarves have a good standing but they also rarely meet or interact.

The many different leaders of the Dwarves meet with the Darraki “leaders” (I don’t know how they are structured exactly yet) on a yearly basis as the Darakki are concerned about the ongoing war in the north. Even though they are safe from the demons that are present there they have encountered their fair share of demons on the oceans and they know what it can be like. The Darakki have once lended aid to the Dwarves as a secondary line of defense behind the front lines to eliminate any creatures that would pass the front lines. And have extended that aid to the swamps in the south later too, but they considered the environmental circumstances in the swamp to be too dangerous and resorted to escorts instead. The Dwarves are extremely grateful for their actions and will never forget it. They hold the Darakki in very high regard.

The Humans and the Dwarves are bound by trade but they have a slight aversion towards each other. The humans think they are self-righteous and charge absurdly high prices. While the Dwarves blame them for not helping out in their suffering, while if they fell the Humans would be next and likely fall too.

The humans and the Darakki have a strong trading alliance and they tolerate each other. But that’s also where it ends. The Humans generally are a bit weirded out by their physical differences and the humans love the sunny and colourful Nausolean islands, but they aren’t even allowed there unless they are there for strictly business only. The humans share a lot with the Darakki in hopes that they will return the favor and loosen their restrictions so that the empire of man might settle on the nausolean islands as the islands are largely untouched due to the Darakki mainly living at sea. The Darakki however do not seem to budge.

Shadows of cal'duur

The game is situated pretty much right after the Darakki have met with the Dwarves and have now started their combined efforts to uncover the mysteries of the Crysalic runes.  This means they are aware of the Crysalic runes and have a suspicion of what it all means. Dwarves at this point are still recovering from their losses in the war as they only discovered the blue gems 2 years ago. Their innovative nature and ingenuity have created the most sophisticated contraptions to aid them to their goals. They've been working on utilizing the blue gems in a bunch of things from weapons to city infrastructure. Experimenting in all departments, the blue gems have made for a revolutionary solution to compact, portable steam powered devices… Devices which you’ll be testing in the city streets of Cal’duur. While controlled magic spells are still a long way off at this point in time. “Crafted” magical spells are here, new contraptions that push the possibilities of the blue gems are constructed every day. Making for an interesting selection of weapons, armor and gadgets. With the still low population of the dwarves and the still very present war in the north, the dwarves can’t spend the manpower to clear out their own cities, and thus mainly rely on mercenaries. 

Discovery of magic as a language

The discovery of magic in the universe is the mark of a new age. The crysalic plane is discovered by the Dwarves and the Darakki together. The Dwarves introduced the Darakki to their power generators. During a show of its performance Darakki noticed strange markings or patterns on the dust that settled on the machine. The Darakki felt a strange affection for the markings. This sparked a combined effort to seek out the meaning of these runes. They figured out that it is basically a language that is used to express the flow of the energy of the Crysalic plane. This is also where they named this new language the Crysalic language. Much much later they established a sort of alphabet (The one you see in the concept art above) with which they can formulate “sentences” that would spark some sort of effect. Every effect pulls energy from the crysalic plane and therefore causes the material plane to push energy back to the crysalic plane and therefore something or someone needs to be sacrificed as a cost for the spell. This is how magic works. Spells leave runic markings in the vicinity and will cause the Material plane to consume something. What the material plane consumes can be random but is always local to the casting of the spell. Cast a spell to rejuvenate a person and an animal might start decaying in the span of seconds to the point of death. Cast a spell to freeze a pool of water and the trees in a radius of a few meters might die in mere seconds. Cast a spell to heal your friend from the brink of death and the material plane might just take your life instead… The cost can be devastating and sometimes unpredictable. There are ways of choosing your sacrifice but it requires a caster of great skill as they need to link into the energy of the sacrifice before casting the spell and it takes a great toll on the Magical attunement of the caster, and puts the sacrifice in great pain or pressure. Attunement can be regained in time by hibernating. Hibernation is a mindfulness technique where you lock into the Crysalic energy around you and is thus more effective around objects or beings that possess great amounts of Crysalic energy. In this hibernating state the person will be unconscious and not wake up under any circumstances until their maximum attunement is reached. For this reason a mage, or Statiomancer as they are called here, will usually carry something of magical power with them. The potential of magic seems unlimited, but the after effects match their magnitude in destruction. It is both a gift and a burden to wield the arcane. It requires a lot of study of the Crysalic and understanding how it works to use the Crysalic language to a good effect. 

Magic is both the best and the worst thing to have been discovered and it changed the world forever.

Closing remarks

This marks the end of what I have to show you for now. Thank you for reading all the way to the end! I’ve been very excited to share all this with everyone for a couple months now and it feels really cool to finally be able to talk about some of these things now. If you have any questions or suggestions etc. please feel free to tell me them here in the comments down below or even better you can talk about it with everyone else in the Lightblast Studios discord server where you can stay updated on everything Shadows of Cal’duur. Thanks again and I’ll see you next time when we start talking about the development of the first parts of the game!