Onan: The Shatterds
The world burns. The wise learn when to breathe.
Onan is a post-cataclysmic arcane-industrial world shaped by the aftermath of the Pulse Wars — a magical arms race that nearly destroyed all civilization. Roughly seventy million survivors are spread across a wounded planet, clustered in dense citadels, fortress valleys, and cliff-cities surrounded by vast wilderness. Only about 10% of the planet is truly controlled civilization. The current year is AI 67 — sixty-seven years After Ignition, since civilization began clawing its way back toward the surface.
The Pulse Wars
No one agrees on what to call it. In the north, the Pulse Wars. Among soldiers, the Forever War. In old imperial chronicles, the World War. Scholars whisper the Wizard War. Nomads call it the Hundred Year War, though it lasted far longer. It was an age of magical escalation — kingdoms at war, wizard houses above nations, citadels raised on ley lines, and war engines capable of breaking continents. By the end, the world was already failing under the strain.
The Thirteen Shifts
The Pulse Wars did not end in a single cataclysm, but in thirteen. Each Shift was a ley line rupture event — a failure of the world's hidden architecture so violent that cities vanished, seas boiled, and whole civilizations were erased. In the final Shifts, the wizard houses burned. The world's heart ruptured. Essa flooded the bones of the planet. The old order died with it.
The Long Night
Then came the Long Night. The sun vanished between one season and the next. Ash choked the sky. Cold took the fields. Hunger took the weak. Three generations lived and died underground. Somewhere in those buried decades, the dead stopped staying dead. The Husks claimed the surface. Something began to gather them, direct them, shape them into more than mindless ruin. Those who survived emerged into a world they no longer recognized, carrying silence like inheritance.
The Age of Fire
AI 67 — the Age of Fire. The sun has returned, but the world has not healed. The Empire consolidates. The Shatterds rise. The Blackglass Wastes remain in Husk hands. Wizard survivors hide. The King's Council, the Godkiln, and the Guild Web hold together an uneasy peace built on mutual hatred and mutual dependence.
Map of the Shatterds
Timeline
Major Factions
A feudal military coalition that emerged from organized survival — not from comfort or commerce. Its right to rule rests on one fact: it holds the Wall. Many kings and lords exist — hence 'a Hundred Kings' — but true power has centralized into the King's Council. In practice, the Council rules. The Empire controls Essa production, suppresses natural magic, and maintains the Guardian Wall that separates the civilized north from the Blackglass Wastes.
The supreme ruling body of the Empire. A small number of dominant bloodlines who collectively control the Wall, the Godkiln, the founding citadel, and imperial policy. They do not hold absolute individual power — they hold it collectively. The five Oligarch Houses form the core of the Council's power.
One of the five Oligarch Houses. Commands the glacier canals of the Crown Range. Control of water equals control of who lives at altitude — a stranglehold more powerful than any army.
Masters of Torv. "Fire is the only honest power." Built the conduits that feed the Godkiln. The Forge Barons control the industrial spine of the Empire. High Hierophant Caldris Solmere — half man, half reliquary — governs the Godkiln from a sealed furnace chamber.
High-born Anaki elves of Nexar. Control banking, skyships, and Essa trade routes. House Veyra operates at the intersection of imperial politics and Shatterds commerce — their true home is the floating city of Nexar.
Rule the valley-floor agrarian zones and arenas. Economy of debt, labor, and spectacle. The Blood Keepers manage the Empire's most politically vulnerable resource: the enormous, underpaid, resentful laboring population.
Define what is sacred. Oversee the Church of Flame. Temples always at peak elevation. The Flame Priests control the Empire's spiritual infrastructure and the Order of the White Veil — the priest-engineers who run the Godkiln.
Governs the Godkiln. Their creed: "To refine is to worship." Priest-engineers who manage the most powerful Essa production facility in the world. Their unseen master is High Hierophant Caldris Solmere, dwelling within a sealed furnace chamber — half man, half reliquary.
Pirate alliance enforcing rough maritime order across the Shatterds. Not righteous — useful. The Compact maintains enough order on the water lanes that trade can function, while extracting tribute from that same trade.
Shadow economy. Debt, coercion, quiet dominance through scarcity. The Black Tithe does not announce itself — it accumulates leverage. When someone in the Shatterds owes a debt they cannot pay, the Black Tithe owns whatever comes next.
Corporate Empire expansion. Economics as conquest. The Tower Proxies are the Empire's commercial arm in the Shatterds — operating as legitimate trading companies while systematically buying out local infrastructure.
Sea-religious order with authority over deep remains and taboo harvests. The Leviathan Priests claim spiritual jurisdiction over the corpses of the great sea creatures — giving them enormous leverage over the Salt Kiln's most valuable raw material.
Labor and claim enforcement. Can shut down ports faster than a blockade. The Union controls who has legal claim rights on salvage — the primary economic activity of the Shatterds — and enforces those claims with professional violence.
Practitioners bargaining with what lives inside storms. Storm Witches are natural Essa channelers — technically suppressed by Imperial doctrine — who have built an independent practice in the Shatterds where the Suppression Grid has no reach.
Hidden fresh water and shallow wreck expertise. The Reef Nomads know the Shatterds as no outsider ever will — they live in its margins, trade in its secrets, and survive through knowledge others do not have.
Key Locations
The largest city in the world and the seat of the King's Council. Population approximately one million. Located in the northern peaks of the Empire. Cool air. Glacier-fed water. The safest place on the planet. Contains the Godkiln District — the most powerful Essa refinery in existence.
- Population ~1,000,000 across four concentric rings
- Outer Band (~900,000): Laborers, craftspeople, soldiers, pilgrims. Full Aetherbinder use required in lower sections.
- Second Band (~90,000): Guild halls, academies, merchant estates, minor noble residences.
The great defensive structure that made imperial civilization possible — formed from the old mountain system and reshaped into near-impassable terraformed cliffs. Stretches across the entire southern frontier of the Empire. It is not one state expense among many. It is the reason everything else exists. If the Wall falls, the Empire stops being an empire.
- Spans the entire southern frontier of the Empire
- Formed from reshaped mountain systems — not merely built, but terraformed
- Ashgate: The Wall's front door. Half city, half military base. Last imperial city before the dead lands.
One unified region south of the Guardian Wall. Temperatures reach 130–160°F. The ley line nexus beneath was among the first to rupture in the Thirteen Shifts and has never recovered. Tone: Dune crossed with Walking Dead crossed with Mad Max: Fury Road. The glass sings at night. The Sand Dragons move at dawn. The dead own the ruins. The living own nothing but their next hour.
- Temperature 130–160°F — the most extreme environment on the planet
- Surface fused into black glass from ley line rupture heat
- Husks dominate the ruins — organized, patient, directed by something
The world's last great natural paradise. The only region where ley lines survived the Thirteen Shifts intact. Home of the Elian peoples: Anaki, Felloni, Nill, Virel, and Gree. The Empire has tried three times to establish a presence. Each expedition returned changed, with no memory of what turned them around.
- Only region where ley lines survived the Thirteen Shifts intact
- Home of five Elian peoples: Anaki, Felloni, Nill, Virel, and Gree
- Empire cannot enter — three expeditions returned changed with no memory
Eastern delta and marshland. Home of the Godan cold-blooded species. The drifting capital Zan'Vorr moves through the delta on enormous barges. Blends south into the Shatterds.
- Godan (small amphibious frog-kin) are the primary inhabitants
- Drifting capital Zan'Vorr moves through the delta system
- Blends into the northern Shatterds — contested border territory
A vast labyrinth — approximately 3,000 miles in diameter — of volcanic islands, sheer cliffs, and drowned canyons. Surface temperatures 100–130°F. The Salt Kiln is the dominant Essa refinery, processing T2–T4 grades. Shatterds culture is built around archipelago navigation — canyon channels, reef labyrinths, and island mazes. The Shatterds are not open-ocean sailors — they are coastal abyssal edge-runners, storm-channel pilots, and dragon-water opportunists.
- Approximately 3,000 miles in diameter — an enormous labyrinth
- Volcanic islands, sheer cliffs, drowned canyons, reef systems
- Surface temperatures 100–130°F
Far southeast. Dracilian territory. Living magma. Temperatures 150–200°F. NOT "Southern Reach" — Dragon's Reach is the locked canonical name.
- Temperature 150–200°F — extreme even by Onan standards
- Living magma fields — geologically active
- Dracilian apex predators in their natural environment
The Floating Metropolis. Levitating platforms above canyon seas. Anaki merchant families, skyships, banking. House Veyra's true home. Produces T3 Trade/Sky Essa.
- Levitating platforms above the canyon sea — a feat of Essa engineering
- Home of House Veyra and the Anaki merchant families
- Skyship docking infrastructure
The pirate citadel. Free Corsair Compact runs the docks. The Planks: an entire commercial district built on lashed timber over open water. Black market T1–T2 Essa.
- Free Corsair Compact controls all dock operations
- The Planks: commercial district built entirely on lashed timber over open water
- Black market for unlicensed Essa, salvage, and information
The Shatterds' industrial engine. Leviathan carcasses processed on the docks. Raw T2–T4 Essa refined here. The smell of rendered Leviathan fat and Essa burn is permanent.
- Leviathan carcasses processed on the open docks
- Raw T2–T4 Essa refined from Leviathan organs
- Controlled by a rotating council of guild representatives
The Warlord's City. Leadership decided in the arena. Basalt walls. The most democratic city by the most violent method. Bulk raw T2 Essa processing.
- Leadership determined in arena combat — open to any challenger
- Basalt walls — among the most defensible natural fortifications in the Shatterds
- Majority Vorran and Kavari population
The Iron Forge. Every weapon in the Empire starts here. Loud, hot, proud. T3–T4 Combat Essa. Part of the Eastern Triangle with Grainmark and Besoth.
- Every imperial weapon begins with raw metal from Torv
- Essa Knight and Wall Soldier training academies
- T3–T4 Combat Essa production
White towers. The Empire's hospital and diplomatic mouth. Neutral ground for negotiation. T2–T3 Healing Essa.
- White towers visible from miles — a deliberate statement of neutrality
- Empire's primary hospital and healing Essa research center
- Neutral ground for inter-faction negotiation — all weapons checked at the gate
The Wall's front door. Half city, half military base. The last Imperial city before the dead lands. T3 War/Defense Essa.
- Half civilian city, half military installation — permanent state of readiness
- Last resupply point before the Blackglass Wastes
- Wall Castellan command structure governs military operations
The Wall's power source. The ground hums constantly. Soldiers here age faster than they should. T3 Conduit/Relay Essa.
- Powers the Guardian Wall defensive systems
- Ground hums constantly from Essa conduit load
- Soldiers and civilians here age faster — unexplained Essa accumulation effect
A massive sub-sea cliff-shelf descending in layers into the deep canyon systems of the Shatterds. The Ragged Hook is the primary adventuring environment of the Shatterds sourcebook — a vertical world of stacked ecological zones, each more dangerous than the last.
- A vertical geography descending from sea-surface to deep canyon floor
- Upper Shelf: Surface operations, markets, relatively safe
- Mid-Shelf: Working salvage zones, moderate Leviathan presence