The Before-Things

 Before we begin, it is important to note that the Before-Things do not exist. They aren't imaginary, because something imagined is something that can be conceived of, can be described to others, can even be given a physical form, if you're a decent artist. Before-Things aren't like that. They are real, in the sense that they can physically alter the world around them, but regardless of that fact, they do not exist.

Maybe it'll make more sense if I explain exactly what Before-Things are.

Before-Things are the remnants of everything that has ever been retroactively removed from reality. Obviously, no one knows what the things which have been removed are, because if anyone knew what had been removed, than it clearly hasn't been properly removed. More than likely, even the beings which caused the removal aren't even aware that they did it. All that they'd remember is performing a ritual in order to destroy something that already does not, never has, and cannot possibly ever exist. This is, for obvious reasons, impossible. 

So, then, what are Before-Things? If a concept really is so utterly erased, how is it possible that remnants are left behind?

It's probably best if I explain with an example. Imagine for a moment that the color orange is retroactively annihilated. This doesn't mean that everything orange disappears, or that people start seeing different colors where orange once was, or that everyone stops considering orange to be a color distinct from red, it's just that orange, as a physical thing and as an idea, just stops. It stops ever having existed in the first place.  It stops having ever not existed, because the non-existence of something necessarily implies that opposite is possible as well. Orange stops being  conceivable. Not individuals, not by a cultural zeitgeist, not by the zapping of neurons, not even in the inexpressible way by which reality perceives itself. It is just fucking gone.

In this situation, what happens to foxes?
Foxes are orange, but they aren't only orange.  There is more to fox-dom than just the fact that they are orange. Foxes have other colors on them. They have claws, and fur, and eyes, and many things within them that are not the color orange.  

To be clear, when I say that foxes have things that aren't orange, I don't mean that they have things that aren't colored orange. They do, but that's beside the point. When I say that foxes have things that aren't orange, I mean they have things that aren't orange in the same way that a flag, even a flag that is entirely colored orange, is still a flag, and not a color. Back to foxes.

As I was saying, orange may be gone, but there's still plenty of fox left over. The problem is that foxes don't just changes colors, once orange disappears. Foxes do not suddenly become blue. Instead, the color of a fox is now something that doesn't exist, and that causes... Problems. 

This, in essence, is what the Before-Things are. They're objects with traits that no longer exist. They're stuck in a paradoxical state of simultaneous existence and non-existence, and non-existence is winning. Reality doesn't recognize them anymore, and so they're being erased. That's where it ends, for most of them. They quietly wink out of ever-having-been. Some of them, though, figure out the only way they can extend their lifespan - Being recognized. 

Sure, they can't get the universe to remember them, but they can get people to, and that's the next-best thing. How do they accomplish this? Doesn't matter! Most often, it's almost murdering someone. There are few times you're more focused on perceiving something than when you're fighting for your life, and trauma flashbacks will provide some sustenance for years to come.

It doesn't matter, though. They're fighting a losing battle. The question isn't whether or not they'll cease to exist, it's how long until they do. 

How do you use any of this shit?

Fuck if I know.

The Atlanteans

Depending on how things go, this may be the first post I'll be writing about an entirely new setting. There's also a chance I'll cannibalize it and reuse ideas on Egharl. Maybe it'll grow in the telling and end up becoming its own goddamn setting. Maybe I'll get bored and never write about this again. There is literally no way for anyone to predict what is about to happen. Fuck you, I'm horrid at this.

The Ocean is not a happy place. To be fair, most places in the world are not happy. The Oceans aren't an exception.

The Atlanteans, as they will be called until I get a better name for them than "Atlanteans", are one of the causes of this unhappiness. Scholars broadly divide them into four groups, who I will now vaguely gesture my way through. Hopefully, it'll make more sense once I'm out of the introduction.

They aren't humans. They're humanoid, but they look more like the Sahaugin than anything else I can easily describe.

The first group are generally known as "People of Basalt". They take their name from their place of origin, unsurprisingly known as the "Basalt City", which itself is built around, you fucking guessed it, the "Basalt Crystal".

Poor naming scheme aside, it isn't inaccurate. To those with enough time to pursue magic, the Basalt Crystal is everything. To everyone else, the city that depends on those people is. Magical power is derived from the Basalt Crystal, mystical visions are divined from the Basalt Crystal, and perhaps most importantly, the Basalt Crystal allows for a sort of mass production that would otherwise be impossible underwater. There are real, working forges in the Basalt City - Hell, they work better than most forges on the surface do. They can't really be used to make metal weapons, but they can be combined with an obscure magical process to create, you guessed it, basalt weapons.

For whatever reason, this power has not been used to create an empire. Instead, the Basalt City was created, and then expanded, and eventually it became a hellish network of identical tubes for anyone who isn't a native. In general, the People of the Basalt are remarkably isolationist. Still engaged in an eternal war with the rest of the world, but who isn't?

The "People of  Waves" are the most widespread of the bunch. I struggle to describe specifics because I don't have any especially distinctive traits to build around, so I'll talk about hierarchy for a minute.

Atlanteans never stop growing. By the time they're considered adults, they're slightly shorter than the average man. Hundred years after that, and they're about the size of an ogre. Should they manage to survive to somewhere around their 250s, they'll rival most giants for size. They're also organized into a very strict age-based hierarchy. In effect, the bigger you are, the higher up on the ladder you are.

That being said, very few make it to their 250s. As a Person of the Waves, your life is going to go one of four ways. Either you show the aptitude to become either a mage or a priest, and are probably killed in line of duty and/or murdered by rivals, you become skilled enough at your chosen trade that you're allowed to hang around as a teacher, or you don't manage to do any of that and you're shipped off to war once you hit middle-age. Besides the very real need for troops to fuel an unending, omni-directional war in the sea, this also helps make sure that no one gets powerful enough to threaten the order of things. This system exists to some degree in every group of Atlanteans, but it's most obvious and most strict among the People of the Waves.

Above the seas, they do a brisk trade in coal, mostly with the Vampire Barons, in exchange for the mass-produced products that coal makes possible. It's a mutually beneficial agreement, all things considered.

The Vampire Barons will definitely get their own post, later down the line. They're the thing that inspired this whole as-yet-unnamed setting.

Next up, "People of Ice". It's speculated that they were originally a group of one of the other types, who were forced into Arctic regions by the Pelagics, another group of fish-people who may eventually get their own post. Whatever the case, they've managed to endure the cold weather and, through whatever means, stumbled upon the rare art of Ice-Crafting. Occasionally, they send trading expeditions South. These expeditions are huge, sailing on broken-off chunks of glacier, maintained by hundreds of Atlanteans and at least two mages - One to steer the ship and one to keep it frozen. They aren't afraid of the ship sinking, but they're pretty damn easy to board. These voyages are incredibly hectic.

They're also necromancers. Not the kind where you go through elaborate rituals to reanimate a corpse under some external power, because that kind of extremely expensive and generally inefficient. The kind where you make a corpse really easy for a spirit to inhabit, set up a few wards, and then pray to whatever deities you hold that it does what you want it to and doesn't go fucking berserk. 

Finally, we have the "People of Coral". They live in coral. They make their tools out of coral. Generally, they're thought to be a bunch of disconnected and uncivilized tribes who mostly occupy themselves with raiding passers-by, both under and above the water.

Rumors of a singular Ur-Coral which links every reef in the world are, as of yet, unsubstantiated.

OCEANS

 OCEANS.

THEY'RE FUCKING STUPID. I'M GOING TO FIGHT THE WAVES.