I cannot conceive of eternity. I don’t even think the minds can. I am also unable to conceive of my own death, for oblivion and absence are anathema to the human mind.
We are, we experience, we sense, we taste. We occupy this world in more ways than one.
The ancients, before our cultic and thaumaturgy bestowed upon us extended life, said that it was the purview of all who to die. But the faithful made this a limp declaration, for death was merely another me...
2025-06-08 12:40:12 +0000 UTC
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Well, dear reader, it seems that the surfacers have brought interesting times upon us aplenty. Merely days after foiling an initial tact near Passage, the once-unknown surfacer now known as honored guest Shiv has continued his streak of auspicious and heroic actions.
The first was talking down his fellow surfacer, who, due to suffering from a mental break, held several of the cradle staff hostage. After this, however, both surfacers defined themselves in a moment of even gr...
2025-06-08 10:42:04 +0000 UTC
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Absolutely horrific. It’s like a nightmare that won’t end. I can still… I can still see them opening me up and pulling me apart and…
Well, it’s also the only reason I passed my Biomancy examination to become a Novice Practitioner. The pain is immense, and the tortures are cruel and unusual, but the instructions… the detail… the focused tutoring you won’t find anywhere else. No other book marries the practical and theoretical so well…
It’s ...
2025-06-07 16:26:47 +0000 UTC
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Your body will undergo changes as certain skills evolve. This is a natural part of your advancement across the Tiers.
Most obvious changes occur when your physicality and your toughness reach adept. Some call this the Hardening, or Crossing the First Boundary. It is when you advance from something that still vaguely lingers in the realm of mortality into becoming a true Pathbearer, one that is capable of wrestling against raging storms and the cruel hand of fate.
2025-06-07 09:52:52 +0000 UTC
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Ah. Master John Doe… Dueling him made me loathe the very existence of Skills, Classes, and Essence. Our fight was a pure thing. Our battle was a pure thing. Magic sometimes unmakes a warrior and makes them reliant on esoterica.
But I still remember. I still know. We were animals once. Just beasts of martial delight. And when we crashed force and exchanged steel, I remembered those primal joys…
-Wei An Wei, The Realmbreaker
II-113
A Friendly Spar (II)...
2025-06-06 19:26:09 +0000 UTC
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I have seen once-hopeless Advanced Pathbearers become reborn through the completion of a quest. And I have seen Masters fall and shatter from the consequences of failure.
There is something every Pathbearer learns during their life: the system abhors the weak. The system abhors defeat. And the system wants you to struggle, to fight, to crawl at the lid of your casket even as it is closing to reach one more level, to slay one more foe.
And every now and again,...
2025-06-06 17:42:33 +0000 UTC
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I didn’t expect to become a Master. I didn’t expect to skip over Adept altogether for my Geomancy and become Warden of Stone. It was just a thing of desperation for me. But I suppose the way my comrades tell it sounds different.
We were being assaulted from all sides, taking heavy losses. We were fighting some group of invaders that day, towering gray skinned monsters, who were, for all purposes, heavily magically resistant. Direct magical attacks didn’t work against ...
2025-06-06 09:04:18 +0000 UTC
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+Try your Cognisoft again. Do it again. If you don’t do it, we’re gonna be dead anyway.
Try it again. This is Fireteam Windborne. We need immediate extraction. The entire district needs immediate extraction.
The Substance, it’s shifting, it’s cracking. Something’s coming out of the—
Oh, oh God, oh just, oh no, no, no, no, no, God, no, please don’t, stop, I don’t want to see, I don’t want, I don’t want—okay, okay…
2025-06-05 18:19:40 +0000 UTC
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The gap between a Pathless mortal at the height of their natural potential and an Advanced Pathebearer who just started their journey isn’t that large. For warriors, it just seems like they’re a little stronger, a little faster, their weapons a little bigger. Mages are even more embarrassing. Most of the other magi in my company didn’t have maxed out Pathless Physicality. They’re slow, they're sloppy, they get hurt and sick easily, and their magic isn’t anything remarkable eithe...
2025-06-05 15:49:36 +0000 UTC
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Though a teleportation hub is essential to any major city’s infrastructure, nowhere is it closer to being a city’s lifeblood. It is theorized that the Composer likely started creating the city using Passage as a major fulcrum, bound to Integrated Earth. After all, even if this is the personal realm of a goddess and her protected peoples, it cannot be disconnected from baseline reality per the laws of spatial relativity. It needs to remain tethered by some means or some strands of acce...
2025-06-05 08:28:15 +0000 UTC
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Sometimes you get a funny feeling. It’s nothing logical. There’s no evidence or reason behind the way you’re feeling, but it’s there. It’s like a piece of shrapnel in your gut, and you can’t get it out. And you think to yourself, “Something’s wrong. Something’s wrong. Something’s wrong.” That’s when you should listen to your gut. Worst case, you’re paranoid. Best case, you avoid being dead.
Let me tell you a story. One day, after a successful run, ...
2025-06-04 18:38:05 +0000 UTC
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Quest Gained: Collapse Weave’s teleportation network to ensure the immediate extraction of a critical and compromised asset.
Reward: +10 to Stealth; Realmsplitter Dagger (Heroic); Shroud of Veiled Existence (Heroic)
Failure: Briefly alerts the Composer to 50% of Aviary’s agents operating within her dimension.
-Quest granted to the “Corvids” of Aviary operating in Weave
22
Bone
2025-06-04 15:57:17 +0000 UTC
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Should you encounter someone who bears the visage of an avian-themed helmet, you should know a few things. The first is that you are likely dead, for the corvid-helmed are the elite assassins of Aviary, New Albion Secret Service. These killers have no past, no future, and exist in the present only to slay and break, vanishing back into the dark.
Most of them are selected from orphanages, stolen from hostile families as a final insult, or, according to certain rumors, even c...
2025-06-04 08:13:43 +0000 UTC
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…After the brutal battle at Passage that many onlookers described as “like two toadhounds ripping into each other” and “a piece of the sky falling,” official sources have stated that the victorious surfacer is not, in fact, a hostile agent of Albion, but rather a wandering Pathbearer on a mission of peace and security going by the title “Shiv.”
Afterward, though wounded, the surfacer continued on with his Umbral and Weaveress escort to meet the Exalted Mother....
2025-06-03 12:26:48 +0000 UTC
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Beware the fel-touched, the taint, the alien, and the Abyssal. Know that what lingers beyond the reach of the light can only be borne of the grasp of the unholy.
Know that the will of the underworld depths is the domain where a man’s soul is subverted. And know that with strength and fire in one’s heart, with focus and diligence, the shadows may be parted.
The prophesied day will come, when all are ignited under the glow of auroral bright, and the sun ris...
2025-06-03 05:34:26 +0000 UTC
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Rest is essential. Rest is non-negotiable. Rest is something many Pathbearers neglect during their journey to obtain more power and advance their standing in the world. You cannot overcome an injury through determination. You cannot overcome a lack of proficiency in a single day—or avenge a defeat in a single instant.
You cannot.
Face this. This is as much a fundamental truth as the sun rising in the morning, as mana prevades this world, as the ...
2025-06-03 04:08:24 +0000 UTC
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Direct engagement is strictly prohibited—not recommended against, prohibited. Do not face him head-on. Do not show him your techniques, capabilities, or skills head-on. If you see him, you are to surrender, or you are to, if you have the resolve, finish yourselves. Do not, do not, do not ever show him how you fight. He will learn, he will remember, and he will evolve. We want to keep him within a certain threshold. Know this. Do not forget this. Have this seared into your mind.
...
2025-06-02 14:34:23 +0000 UTC
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{So, it works this way. Three.
Three is the most essential number. We have a mind, we have a body, and sometimes, if we’re Godclad, we have a Soul. The soul makes us able to alter the conditions of the world, to revert what we perceive, what we believe of reality. You’re aware of this. You have done this before. That is through the use of a heaven. It is effectively a skeleton key on reality or a specific program. Something more to you, but that’s how I view it....
2025-06-02 11:20:19 +0000 UTC
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Quests are something that all Pathbearers desire, but few will regularly encounter. The reason is that it takes a divine entity, or in extreme cases, the system itself, to issue fourth quests. These are events of massive importance, often determining the fates of entire towns, cities, or even kingdoms.
Perhaps the most well-known quest came from legend during the early days of the system’s integration. The Incursions, as they were called, saw the invasion of new species f...
2025-06-02 09:29:33 +0000 UTC
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All demons carry the taint, and it is of this taint that other demons are born, when their fell presence. It is not the body that succumbs, but the spirit.
The very being of a person turns against themselves and becomes something of an incubator for a new demon.
To this regard, the researchers at the Prismatic Order have undergone many tests and experiments to discover whether the demons and vampires have close relations. Due to the nature and similarity of t...
2025-06-02 08:44:53 +0000 UTC
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No, no, no, this is not acceptable. I have delivered what you asked, what was contracted. I have fulfilled the conditions of my quest. Now, you promised! You promised that there would be a secure extraction, that I would teleport there, and you would take the Young Lord off of me and handle the rest. I would receive payment there—the other half of what was promised. Instead, I arrived there, finding everyone dead, and the rogue Necrotechs waiting in ambush.
I took grave w...
2025-06-01 11:54:35 +0000 UTC
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When the Composer birthed herself from the slumbering body of the Great One, she ventured into the abyssal depths—a babe caught amidst the strife of an already ongoing war.
The Four Faiths, in eons past, warred over the sanctity of the Great One’s body. Each faction had its own design upon the fallen divine.
For the Court of the First Blood, it was that which flowed through the Great One’s veins that mattered most. Their dreams were of self-empowe...
2025-06-01 09:01:51 +0000 UTC
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Skills can’t make you taller. I tried. I tried a lot. Find someone who can change your bodies, children. Eat your food and get your nutrition. Find a lover who does not judge. Those are the only places of hope.
The heavens are cruel.
-Wei An Wei, The Realmbreaker
II-111
The Coming Harvest (II)
“Nooooo!” Wei screamed, howling in outrage, even as his internalized dimensional expanded outward. For all intents and purposes, this manifestation ...
2025-05-31 19:33:26 +0000 UTC
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The Order will save you, but they will not allow everyone to be among their number.
After they save you, they will lead you to your new life, and you will be trained to live as a person again. But here is where you must show your resolve. Most of us bear the Path of a Slave. Our lot is one that services our masters, that makes us more durable against torment, stronger, to serve as mules, and emotionally deader, so there is less of our soul to kill.
We do not ...
2025-05-31 17:43:33 +0000 UTC
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50. 100. 200. 500
These are the numbers you should know. These are the numbers you will know as a Pathbearer. These are the standard level thresholds for achieving Adept, Master, Hero, and Legendary status for your skills.
For those of you who reach these numbers for your skills, they will evolve to become something greater at the next tier, provided that they are not already of a higher tier quality (see the Skills Tiers chapter for more details).
2025-05-31 12:56:43 +0000 UTC
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“To be Umbral is to know that you are human, but stand in the place of cattle.”
Such were the words my mother spoke to me when I was just a babe. Such were the final words she repeated when she finally perished from the plague. A plague she got from the deep slugs we tended our entire lives. And then they raised her—trapped her mind in her corpse and let her soul dissolve. They sent her up after that. Another undead soldier to the surface for their ridiculous crusade....
2025-05-31 07:43:03 +0000 UTC
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{Refusal to all Bleaks: Assemble the Deep Ones of Time. We need a concentration of force. Peel the path open. We cannot allow the Prefect to fall into the hands of the Dreamer—and we must not allow the Infacer to assume the mantle.
Prepare the False-Vacuum Bombs as well. We do whatever it takes.
Whatever it takes.}
-EGI Contingency Bleak Refusal
36-2
Theaters of the Last War (I)
—[Avo, The Hidden Flame]—
...
2025-05-30 19:22:10 +0000 UTC
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When the Great One fell and descended into the chasm, their blood brought new life to the ruined world. It was their blood that graced us with life in the first place, their blood that seeped magic and skills into this crippled world, and their blood that saved our forebearers from annihilation.
When the first of the ancient Blood-Clans supped from the Great One’s body, they were irrevocably changed. Their being was made perfect and altered. They were elevated beyond the ...
2025-05-30 16:05:39 +0000 UTC
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What can be said for a Legendary-Pathbearer of Undeath that has dedicated his existence to slaying other undying immortals like him? What can be said about an accidental Lich who hunts other Liches out of a strange sense of moral duty, seeing themselves as a guarding against rival immortals?
What can be said about the He Who Halts Eternity: Valor Thann?
Oh, yes, dear reader. Valor Thann is not some myth made by the Pathless and the enslaved to comfort themsel...
2025-05-30 07:17:41 +0000 UTC
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The Soul Cage analysis cannot be completed. Not without a soul still inside. Discovering the exact mechanics behind the rites of lichification isn’t something that can be achieved through theory and experiments alone.
We need an intact Soul Cage. And we must have a sealed lich to be inside it. Without that, we cannot recreate the patterns to achieve a Dichotomously-Linked Soul. Only after can we undergo the next steps and present our findings to the Auroral Council.<...
2025-05-29 17:54:29 +0000 UTC
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