The islands were once fecund deserts, but now are completely barren. Large settlements form around the few magic springs that create enormous amounts of water, one of the most expensive and time consuming commodities to haul to the shattered lands.

There are seven Flavors of magic, each with their own specialties. Vanillamancy is the most basic, allowing for manipulation of raw force.

Legend has it that there is a large city in the mountains, hidden from the eyes of unworthy. City is populated by revenants - it is the place they go after they fulfill their last task.

Plantlife has developed far more aggressively, and it tends to be far more dangerous than wild animals.

The plane is cut off from the rest of the Multiverse. What happens to the souls after their death is everyone's guess.
Gods have fallen from their high places, and are now stuck in frail, mortal bodies, They must occasionally possess a new host.

Megafauna inhabits the void. Regular sights are colossal void whales sailing silently through the night, psuedopods and less identifiably appendages waving silently on their bizarre hides. They feed on possibility, and often bleed it - a haze of lesser possibile leviathan beasts often follow them, and their various appendages carry thier own haze of possible movements.

One particular God, Felicite, is well known for possessing particularly dangerous plant life and attacking wanderers at night and occasionally other gods. This often causes quite a stir, as the survivors of her attacks are often accused of being possessed themselves.

Wilderness in plagued by screaming snakes, which make travel unpleasant but not dangerous.

>>23872240
The screaming snakes are naturally talented at Vanillamancy, and their stuffed corpses are often used as focuses for Vanillamancers.

The long night gave birth to the race of The Last. Predators who stalk the ruins of long lost towns. They are the ultimate hunter in the dark. You will never hear them coming, silent shapes with blade-like claws. And after they are gone, there are no bodies, not even a droplet of blood on the dusty ground. Only metal weapons of their prey, fallen where these lost souls stood and fought.

>>23872244
A common nickname for Vanillamancers is 'snake charmer'.

Strong winds blow between the floating stones, shaping the rocky terrain of the Demi-plane into strange and fantastical shapes. Often the ambient magic helps to direct this erosion, leading to fields of stone that look like people that have calcified in the desert.

>>23872186
Probability Whales are priced for their fat, which is used to make Probability Oil. P-Oil fuels the entire human technology, from airships to differential engines.

The only point of reference in the void is the scar. A great ragged cut of a trillion shades of ebon, it leaks possibility and hate. It is known to the be cause of the apocalypse that destroyed the world demiplane, yet is equidistant regardless of where you travel in the void without, supposedly, a thaumaturgical hex engine that runs on possibility as fuel to navigate the paradoxical currents.

Because of the magical winds and other anomalies of the plane, weather events comes from below, not above.

Underlightning is highly dangerous and claims hundreds of lives a year.

A great mystery of the plane is the landmass itself. What little has been recovered from the history of the Empire before the shattering had it as a primarily ocean world. However, the travelling Guilds and interlopers through the Dolmen gates have mapped enough of the landmasses to show that there is far more land than can be explained floating in the void from the old maps.

While most land sits on a rough single plane, some masses float above or below, spiralling up from the main plane or plumetting down. There is no rhyme or reason - some mountains sit below the main level, while chunks of valley float high above.

>>23872324
Occasionally, P-Generators will catastrophically malfunction, summoning dangerous beasts into the void and usually altering the ecosystem irreparably.

A small but notable guild of healers exists, opposed to the vanillamancers for their unpredictability and their killing of screaming snakes. Though their temples are littered with the snakes, a facet of existence most of these men have learned to ignore, their magic is potent, and they use it to service the many dead or dying in this dangerous terrain. It is often rumored that the most experienced among them can even ride possibility whales and direct their movements as thus through the void, though all this really manages to accomplish is the attention of whalers who demand they use this ability to increase the supply of p-oil.

The Dolmen Walkers are a small sect of mages who specialise in the manipulation of the dolmen gates. They hide themselves, as they are generally killed on sight by clan, guildsmen and the traders/harvesters from outside.

Their magic is primarily based around manipulating the gates (to show distant lands, for diviniation and travel) but some have learnt to create tiny (And some, not so tiny) gates away from the dolmen for manipulation. When not using the dolmen gates, the walkers tend toward subtler hedge magics.

>>23872484
On site if outed or known as a walker*

>>23872324
The burning of P-oil has a small side effect. Rather than generating smoke, it creates small wisp like creatures that dance around the room where the lamp or engine is. Though relatively harmless, they are hard to see and can startle those who are unprepared for their existance.

>>23872484
The sworn enemy of the Dolmen Walkers is the Vinewraiths, a sect of mages whose personal magics allow them to bind the dead into objects or animals and control them as puppets.

Nobody really likes the Vinewraiths.

The void train system, which connects many of the more metropolitan islands to each other, is widely regarded as an amazing feat of engineering achievement, though it's functionability is questioned, as the trains will often make fatal collisions with void whales, and the smoke which they emanate spawn wisps of unprecedented proportions. Nevertheless, many inhabitants of this world are beginning to adopt this as their primary source of long distance travel...better the void train then the Dolmen Walkers after all.

>>23872566
Dolmen Walkers are disliked as the Dolmen Gates are the only way into and out of the plane, and despite the rich material resources, the shattered empire can only support a bare few with the water and food it produces, despite the presence of magical springs.

The Vinewraiths are disliked thanks to good old fashioned Necromantic prejudice.

The fifth type of magic is that owned by the Peacewalkers, a group of wandering equalizers that bring perfect balance to any opposing forces they find. Their powers are that of equalizing, taking strength from one to give to another, and other such miracles.

They are very, very, very widely reviled due to their backwards views of how things work.

>>23872081
Directly opposed to Vanillamancy are the supposedly "dark arts" of Chauclaturgy, focused on the manipulation of the mind and body. All chauclaturgy requires the consumptive use of theobroma, a rare substance known to have addictive properties.

>>23872841
Theobroma's rarity comes due to the fact that it only grows in areas that are in the wake of Probability Whales constantly, and only a couple such intersections exist and are constantly battled over.

After the collapse of the Jhalom, their capital city, Daernica, was lost, vanishing from its roost in the center of the realm. Some say that the city's mages, having seen visions of the collapse, made a last-ditch effort to save it from destruction.

>>23872064
>>23872841

Alchemy and distillation are rare and prized arts, and are therefore heavily regulated by governments to control both necromantic preparations and the production of theobroma.

The further "down" you go in the demi-plane, the thicker the void becomes. As the void thickens, it begins to have a strange effect on the ambient magic of the plane, warping it. This magical warping causes mutations in lifeforms that wander far enough down as well as creating landscapes well beyond normal.

A specific species that inhabits the deeper reaches of the void is a mutation of the void whales. This whale had fallen deep into the void, becoming lost to sight in the darkness. When it next arose it had become fused with a large number of floating islands. Much larger than it's more common kin, it could easily house the ruins of Daernica on it's back. This Deep Void Whale is known to breach from the depths occasionally and is seen as an ill omen for any settlement that witnesses this.

>>23872484
>>23872566
>>23872664
>>23872841

Magic-users are generally hated by the local populace and may be subject to occasional religiously-fueled lynchings, but are granted protection by both their own power and the local governments.

Chauclaturgists are usually more tolerated than others due to prevalent use of theobroma by society's elites, but are the favorite targets of religious radicals

>>23872841
>>23873451

Prolonged and/or heavy use of theobroma may cause mutations. The oldest of the chauclaturgists are never seen in public and are rumored to have become as bloated and corpulent as probability whales.

>>23873451
Supposedly, at the very bottom of the void, lies the Amulet of Yendor, upon which is inscribed the secrets of the Scar. Many adventurers have attempted to bring it back to the "surface" level where most of the landmasses float, but none have returned alive.

>>23873550
>>23873451
>>23872349
Because of all the events lying at the bottom of the void, from the massive Deep Void Whales to the Scar and the Underweather, very few people can manage to eke out an existence here.

Those that do are called Edgeriders, and they are both respected and feared, and usually insane.

>>23873593

Some band together to form parties. Many work with chauclaturgists to escort theobroma harvesters. Others have grouped together and taken to banditry to prey upon those who would venture too far from safety. And then there are the legends of raiding parties that ventured too deep and too long into the void. These stories speak of creatures no longer wholly human and possessed of unnatural appetites, appearances, and powers.

Bump

The seventh and most dangerous form of magic is Noosewood magic, where users sacrifice aspects of themselves in order to cast powerful spells.

>>23874020
It is possible to substitute parts of others, but to do so forcibly is considered to be one of the vilest and most profane acts possible. That has not stopped the power-hungry in the past. As a result, users of Noosewood magic are the subjects of great suspicion.

Construction has begun by a group of foreign-looking humanoids who emerged from the Dolmen some time ago. Those who travel to the lower recesses can see the start of a Great Wall being erected between the Lower Void and the Habitation Plane, a bastion against the Underweather, the Last, and all of the mutated flora and fauna spawned further down. At the head of this project is the current host of the fallen deity Grumm, who once was patron to the Empire's engineers and masons.

>>23874120
Grumm is very temperamental and hates it when work doesn't get done on time. However, despite his faults, he and his host are indeed some of the best architects in the entire plane.

>>23872324
The refining of P-oil is a dangerous and taxing process, and many of the refinery workers who stir the vats go mad from seeing so many possibilities in reflections on the shimmering surface. Those who have Destiny can sometimes be the cause of the malfunction of machines powered by P-oil.

The poop can think.

A group of nomads travel between the shattered Isles. They have developed a form of transport using Vanillamancers to float large boat like contraptions between the various isles. They follow the Void Whales, hoping to find new deposits of theobroma outside other's control.

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Then was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.
What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?
Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day's and night's divider.
That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.
Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos.
All that existed then was void and form less: by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit.
Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit.
Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent.
Transversely was their severing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it?
There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder
Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?
The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?
He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,
Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.

While there are many schools of magic, the subtler forms permeate the world. Currents of power leaking through the dolmen make these possible, as well as manipulation of possibility using the Scar's winds.

Outlander settlements resemble company fronteir mining towns of the 17-1800's, heavily fortified and rough. The various clans have their own strong traditions and are typically nomadic within a certain region, either simply leaping from island to island or constructing bridges. Guilds tend to be based around their own heavily fortified chantries, with very occasionally, a chapter house elsewhere for the larger guilds.

>>23873593
Tales are told of the Havok, most skilled and most dangerous of the Edgeriders. He appears out of the fog near lost Edgeriders, and will either offer aid or grant destruction. He hates surfacers with a passion, mumbling about the "darklings". When pressed for an explanation he will start yelling about mind controlling blobs of nothingness and how the person is better off dead than enslaved

Dolmen storms are a confussle of wild gates tearing open to planes throughout the cosmos. They disgorge bizarre beings, torrents of water and earth and stone and fire and gems and elementals from the elemental planes, demons from the infernal. Sometimes larger gates tear open and become temporarily stable despite not having a dolmen anchor; these can either be allowed to die or a dolmen structure built around them.

They are the decay of the plane's corpse, all that remains after a long, slow death lasting millenia. Eventually the resource rush will end of when the corpse of the plane evaporates back to the source of all things.

Every cowboy needs a horse. And cows.

As the plane features neither, void-dolphins and shoals of manafish do the same job. The fish can be rendered down into raw magical energy and flock together naturally, but must be kept away from settlements where the bizarre effects from raw magic floating around in fish form can be minimised.

Crushing through the skies are a shark like predator. These eyeless beasts hunt based on concentration of magical energy, since their primary food source are the manafish. Their hides are dyed a different hue based on type of mana they consume. Rumors exist of a method to extract even more pure magical essence from these predators, but no evidence towards these claims have been found.

Colossal hollow towers have been found in several locations, each far flung. Some have been sundered, but despite their damage they remain surrounded by the splay of debris that came from them and float as they would normally. These are typically found in the largest of city-ruins, and reek of long-escaped magic.

Unfortunately, anyone who comes to close is snared in the wild enchantments that make up the very fabric of the living stone of the towers and never returns to share their horrifying revelations.

Ghosts roam the islands, an apparent contradiction - undead elementals, clinging to life by hate and rage and fury and a sense of the cold void. Each has taken on a secondary element from one of these listed (and others), granting them a new lease of power and a new personality aspect to their original. Some people display elemental heritage.

The dolmen walkers have been cited experimenting with the collapsing of the Dolmen Gates - their Dolminatrix, a leather-clad warrior-mystic is rumoured to be testing his theory that he can not only accelerate the decay of the plane's remnants, but when the corpse of the plane finally dissipates, he can retain his own consciousness and become a physical part of the singularity, the tao, the original source of all the planes and thus become something.. more.

A vast armada of void pirates roams the outer isles, raiding settlements at will. Formerly sea pirates, these enterprising beings emerged through a dolmen gate wielding great powers and muttering about their Apple Empress and have adapted quickly from sea to void.