‘Golden spires twist in the air like dancers’ - that’s how I used to describe Brimgeist to outsiders. It was beautiful, how they reflected the sun but softened it with the gloriously architectured curves - the work of staggering geniuses - bathing my face far below in a beauty I could not help but seek to replicate in the world around me.
Seek I still do, but it’s harder, you know? Those spires don’t reflect anything anymore. There’s no sun, no moon, no - oh, they were big balls of light in the sky, young one - not conjured like the thousand thousand street lights. Now the city looks more like it’s infested with fireflies. Not that I mind - not that I mind, it was the right call. It’s still the right call.
It has to be.
And we do well for ourselves. Can’t leave the borders, but no one’s starved, no one’s forgotten, though I guess how would you know? Say what you will about Brimgeist, but we band together like… well, like fireflies, I guess. We were a utopia when the world went to shi - went bad, that’s what people called us. And perhaps we still are - it’s hard to say without a basis of comparison. Funny, that. Can’t be the best if you’re the only people left.
I wonder what it’s like out there. Magic destroyed by some dumb wizard. Maybe people survived. Maybe they figured out how to make it work. We’ll find out soon enough. Whatever ‘soon enough’ means. Til then, we keep on keeping on. Mortal and immortal, hand in hand, keeping the darkness at bay, and watching the golden spires of our glory days rust and fade away.
-Anonymous speaker overheard in Doloran City
A country with four major cities and a variety of other smaller settlements and rural locations spread over a varied landscape of plains, rivers and mountains. The country is notable in that (currently) it exists inside a separate universe, custom built to hold Brimgeist safe, meaning that the sky is a constant black void - no day, no night, only darkness.
Gnomes
Goblins
Dwarves
Duergar
Warforged (Forged)
Immortals
Brimgeist is ruled by a council theoretically of ‘the best and brightest.’ A thousand years in a dark universe of your own design though, and even the brightest stars can dim.
Typically referred to as Councillors, it is in practice an Oligarchy. There's a large number of Councillors however, and they have representatives from most areas of society..
Mainstream
People know their history - the stories of the world that was. Some Forged and Immortals remember, but it’s distant memory now. There was a time when this was a society of great works and glorious invention, and there is a general drive to continue that legacy. However, a closed system is harder to find inspiration in.
For many, this is the only home they’ve known, and they see a more positive world than those who remember a brighter one. This is a good and safe land, and they simply look to live in it. Talk of going back is variously interesting or terrifying.
Mainstream
This technology began among the Necromancer specialists and the Construct engineers. While there have been strides to make this process available to all, early adoption has skewed heavily to the mages, the engineers and of course, the wealthy.
To be an Immortal is to walk through life as a skeleton-construct. Piloting a body rather than living; losing some senses, gaining others. You know that you will live forever** (**not provable), and that affects people in different ways.
Many try to continue their life as before - gnomes and dwarves for example always expected a long lifespan. Others take immortality as a prompt to focus on something truly long-term - taking on projects that may take centuries to see the fruits of.
Pilot Programmes
People who volunteered for the process in the early stages, or at points of development. Often from lower points in society, their Immortality is seen as variously noble, desperate, weak, brave or greedy by different people and groups in society - often more a reflection on the judge than the judged.
Some experiments went awry though. Some simply died, while others have struggled with fragilities and glitches in their skeletal bodies. It's not unheard of for an Immortal to have a sudden jolt, collapse into a pile of bones only to reassemble moments later and walk away. It's a challenging way to spend eternity. Of course, these glitches are not exclusive to those volunteers.
Body Modification
Tying your soul to your bones and then ditching the flesh that will only fail you in time - sure, that makes sense. But why stop there?
Bone piercings and other decorations, that's an easy pitch to a group who are all going to look like a bunch of skeletons for all time. But why stop there?
What about horns? That should be fine. A step further. You could add a third arm, and teach your animus to extend to control it too. What is the limit of what your soul can be bound to? How many bones is too many? 207? 250? 300?
Suffice to say, avarice, curiosity and eternity make dangerous companions. What members of the body modification community of Immortals are becoming is … new.
Celebrate the darkness, revel in it. The deeper the shadow, the more you can get away with. Society is full of people judging you - not smart enough, not respectful of the old world enough, not helpful enough. You’re living in a universe created just for you and your country, and who knows if the world you left behind even exists anymore, if it ever did.
So find the darkest spot you can and party until you can’t move. Parties in absolute, even magical darkness. Goth party animals.
Ever seen a Forged with black eyeliner?
Brimgeist was a flourishing civilisation, likely the most powerful in Kantas at the time. They were prosperous and comparatively advanced - even by ‘modern’ standards. Society focused on advancements in technology and magic, bringing it to a virtually utopian state.
One of the major focuses of their work was around immortality. While they had successfully created constructs with true sentience and spirit (read: Forged), they sought to apply these principles to instil their own souls into construct bodies. Finding a connection between body and soul - Brimgeist necromancers learned to bind their souls to their own skeleton - a rite very similar to lichdom, but using processes that mirrored the creation of Forged. Thus, the first Immortals came to be.
An impossible practice to prove the long-term effectiveness of, they found many willing subjects from all parts of society. This was when their diviners saw the first glimpses of the impending disaster - the destruction of the Weave. Devastating in and of itself, it would also spell doom for all of the Immortals in their population, and perhaps the Forged too.
A new project began, years in the making - the sole focus of Brimgeist’s population - dodging disaster. Great works were created and advancements made quickly in geomancy, chronomancy, ethereal arcanotech and many other fields as the mages, artificers, civic planners, architects and more worked intensely to save their people.
When Karthus’ Folly occurred, and the Weave broke, Brimgeist was nowhere to be found. Only great fields of poisonous sulfur remained - creating a toxic environment that meant the entire region was considered a death trap, and not to be ventured into.
Brimgeist endured, in a dark realm. They successfully brought the entire country with them - earth and all - multiple cities, farmlands, and more.
There were a thousand problems to face - the lack of natural light being just one of them. But, with their continued focus and adaptation, they survived and learned to live in this new environment, outside of time, beyond fate itself.
Clockwork, however, meant they had a way to track the passage of time, even roughly. And so, more than a thousand years passed, by their reckoning, before we begin to arrive at ‘present day.’
The golden spires have tarnished. Darkvision is the only vision most people need, save for the farmers toiling in the hydroponic warehouses with their Permanent Daylight.
Society has declined overall - new discoveries are still made, though with less vigour or rigour. The Immortal population has increased, and developed factions of their own, further experimenting with the form and what was possible.
But when should they return? Could they? Was the world safe again? It’s impossible to know. In sealing themselves away they had not found a method to peek through, and not many were keen to devise one. Was this bubble not safe? A smaller pond for some to be the bigger fish in.
All the while though, no rushed nation-sized technology is perfect. Strange occurrences begin to happen - disappearances, screams in the night, reports of horrors in the darkness beyond the lanterns on the main streets.
A group of Brimgeistians learned that someone had arrived from Kantas - a traveller being kept quiet by the government. Learning from this halfling explorer that Kantas was in fact still standing and that magic had been restored, they realised that forces within the government were trying to prevent Brimgeist from ever returning.
They swiftly moved to open the Gateway - the tool prebuilt to allow a limited scouting and transit between Brimgeist and Kantas. Conflict ensued as they were caught up in the plans of multiple great Demons, seeking to overwhelm or kidnap the entire country through diabolical means. With the help of some adventurers on the other side of the portal, the demons were repelled, the Gateway opened, and the government's coverup was exposed.
Brimgeist is now entering a challenging time - adapting to the news that they could return, learning of the challenges in making that happen, catching up on centuries of history and reacquainting themselves with neighbours who had all but forgotten they existed.
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