Shattered Lands Age

Emerging from the wreckage of the Shattering of the World, society collapsed, and what had survived a war became a whole new kind of survival—and the people were not ready for it. For 37 years, people struggled to know that the deities did indeed exist and were willing to extract a heavy price on the land for ignoring them, just to keep the Bound imprisoned. The technology of the old world still exists; it didn’t vanish overnight, but the infrastructure to maintain it was lost when the power grid crashed. Small, isolated islands of technology still exist, and they are in the hands of dangerous organizations that can charge high prices for a taste of what life was like before.

Year 1 – 5 The Howling Years

Survival, mass death, and total disorientation are the states of the world. Remaining megasystems burn out catastrophically. Watcher-aligned sites either collapse, seal themselves in, or transform into something wholly alien. Most survivors assume this is the end of the world; they are wrong, but not by much.

Year 6 – 15 The Ash Realignment

Populations consolidate around defensible ruins, old sanctums, and stable ley line zones. Cybernetic technology becomes relic tech, usable, but not reproducible. Former corporations survive only as logos, myths, and armed remnants.

Year 16 – 38 (Present) The Scarred Present

Fragile societies, mythic technology, and ideological wars. To the extent that there are nations, there are no continent-wide nations. Trade is regional and treacherous, knowledge is the source of power, but also of corruption. Watcher faiths also do exist; they are fragmented and questioned. The Bound are well-known but not understood. People no longer hear the question, though, of whether the world can be saved, but what kind of world is growing in the cracks? Technology has not vanished: cybernetics is scarce, but it has persisted; guns are everywhere, but ammunition is limited. There are drones, yes, but they’re short-range and jury-rigged to operate. The data cores are hazardous, semi-sentient archives where great history awaits the daring. What does not exist is global networks, mass production, dependable power grids (local regions still occasionally have power), and unified standards. The cult of the Bound is no longer a surprise; they are operating, only fragmented, contesting, and mutated by a partial triumph. Some of the truths that everyone knows: the Bound did not win, and because of the Watchers, they damaged reality itself. The Watchers are now not distant certainties; they are real and present. Some Watcher sites have gone quiet; others intervene proactively; some have changed; and all their followers disagree on what the Watchers want these days.