Year 3982 (Arkenal Calendar)

Vicissitude.

This is what drives a world forward, allowing it to grow, evolve… transform.

Change.

Here is a world built on magic, home to fantastical creatures, protected by powerful beings carrying motes of a dead god, now finding itself on the verge of an industrial revolution.

But change requires conflicts.

The world of Ysterra is one with a chaotic history. Founded by a dying god worshipped across different universes, who desired to preserve a world from the influence of other beings such as them. This they did by seeding the nascent world of Ysterra with the remnants of their deific essences. These essences have been born throughout the existence of the world as powerful beings whose sole purpose is to protect Ysterra and its denizens from the rest of the multiverse and to allow the world to evolve. These Ascendent have spent eons as the world’s fiercest guardians, fending off gods and planar beings alike, and shepherding the evolution of Ysterra.

But this protection has come at a cost.

The world today is not as it once was. The violent destruction of one of the Ascendant caused a cataclysmic event - the Aluvance - which forever altered the landscape of the mainland continent of Insaris.

Change.

This wasn't the first detrimental impact of the Ascendent on Ysterra, but in the nearly one-thousand years since, they have sought to make it the last by removing themselves from the immediate world, trusting on their powers born of the deific essence as well as the people of Ysterra itself to still protect the world.

While the common person may not fully appreciate the impact of this self-exile, it has nonetheless wrought more changes to Ysterra, with the mortal races gaining more and more influence on the world in the wake of the departing gods. Population growth, advancements in matters of education and technology, the inevitable rise of powerful governmental and social orders - all these and more are the legacy of the Ascendents’ diminishing presence in daily life. Together, these centuries of changes have brought the civilizations of Ysterra to the cusp of an industrial revolution. Though there are still strong elements of the old world clinging desperately to what defines them, the whispers of evolution grow steadily stronger.

Change. For good or ill…