World Setting

''Warning: Meta-Concept Page. ''

The Poisoned World setting was designed specifically as a Community Server setting. It's intentionally large enough ambitious enough and simultaneously ambiguous enough that multiple participants could put their own stamp on it while less ambitious folks could still have room to travel, travail and maneuver.

The setting of PW begins as a story about a culture which was rescued from the "destruction" of the rest of the world by something akin to one (or more) magical nuke(s) resulting in the world being afflicted with a magically radioactive substance known as Miasma.

10,000 years ago, the People huddled in a giant earthen structure which they named Bastion, and it did not start out as the well developed monstrosity it is now. Only a few of the Strata were initially inhabitable and most of the living was done on the Terrace - the outside, lower 12 levels of Bastion while all the most powerful minds and gifts were busily carving and shaping a home on the inside of Bastion - because they knew that the outside would not remain a viable option.

Bastion
Over the course of the next millennia or two, the inside of Bastion was completed, people flourished, and then the corruption of people and power occurred - this is a good time to read the Bastion Historical Overview if you haven't or don't remember it. This sets up our eventual "Fall of the Ancients," a common Lost Civilization trope which allows us to have strange technology and/or magic items of great power - sometimes combined into one (which we conveniently call MagiTek, generally considered a lost technology).

The actual Poisoned World Play Setting opens with the Miasma having "recently" cleared. Most of the people inside of Bastion had pretty much forgotten that there was a world outside of Bastion (though there were a few groups that believed or knew better and remained historically vigilant). The Federacy, a highly Bureaucratic slow-moving beast with some real teeth, was moving (typically) slow, even after the Miasma had cleared. However, within the past century, Guilds had become all the rage, created ostensibly because they could move a lot quicker than the governments if something new and exciting came onto the scene - and needed to be acted upon. The Feds released the Guilds to go to work, which they did. AXE quickly became the foremost exploration organization and the one that PCs initially work with.

Strata
Strata are the horizontally created divisions that serve as layers of living space within the huge mountain which is Bastion. Climate and access of Strata are maintained by the Glyph System.
 * Most Strata have an interior diameter of approx. 30 miles and are about 1000 feet high. The physical illusion of greater distances between points within the Strata are created by steep hills. The exception are those Strata which are in a WarpSpace: their dimensions are larger (of which there are only a handful). The largest Strata is 32 - Cloudhome, home to the Cloudkin. It's 150 miles in diameter and 3 miles high. The rest are significantly smaller.
 * The nature of the climates supported by the glyph system grows more diverse as we travel upward in strata. Clearly a few Strata were experiments to see how far the system could be pushed with incredible features such as simultaneous multiple seasons, unnaturally long day/night cycles, and even stretching the dimensional space (WarpSpaces).
 * Day, night, and weather is artificially maintained, and the sky is an illusion. Most people either don't know or don't care or both. It's one of the few Glyph Systems that didn't completely fail after the Elysium Wars.
 * A few of the lower Strata, which weren't given climate control, and at least two Strata which were "damaged and rendered uninhabitable" are restricted in access.
 * Some Strata have one or two Truly Notable features - enough so that people visit that Strata to see or be near that Feature OR that could potentially affect the greater campaign. For example, there's this one lake in Cloudhome where the water rains upward. It's considered a sanctuary and something of a near-religious experience for Cloudkin to fly through it. Another example is finding of a race on Strata 17 that had been previously declared uninhabitable by OoPS.
 * Strata are also important in that they form the natural borders for its denizens. Most people rarely leave their Strata with little need to do so as each Strata was designed to be self sufficient.
 * Though most Strata can theoretically be accessed by the Strata above or below it, they typically aren't (it is, in fact, a criminal offense to perform unauthorized digging in a Strata). Inter-Strata travel occurs by using the Glyph Transport System. Each Strata has at least one major Glyph and major cities also have a major Glyph as well.

Strata as a Meta-Concept
Strata are an important meta-concept as they were designed to be GM sandboxes. With over 120 known Strata (some are sub-strata - those beneath Strata 1, but hey, if that's your thing...) a dozen different GMs could "lay claim" to 3 or 4 Strata apiece to "call their own" and over half the existing Strata would still be essentially untouched.

By lay claim I mean that the new Strata Authors are respectfully given the right to "dictate" how that strata looks and feels. The only thing is, they gotta write it down so other people will know! The caveat is that there is a general set of rules about Strata which you should keep in mind when you "make" your Strata.
 * Check out the physical features of Bastion and get an idea of where you're going to place your Strata. Socially speaking, higher is better, with the best Strata being the top 13 Strata.
 * Submit your ideas in writing to the Admins

Outside of Bastion
There's a lake that surrounds Bastion - it extends about 50 miles (?) from Bastion and then there is Beyond the Lake. That's where the Barrier ended and the Miasma began.

There's little further set up and we kept that intentional. I've begun calling the world itself "Home" but will be glad to exchange that.
 * We know that the Exim are out there
 * What's left of the Miasma likes to pool in low places
 * There's a Sea to the Southwest. It's called the Southwest Sea.
 * Other beings are out there in different locations.
 * Airship is the best way to travel because it keeps us above the Miasma.
 * "Outside" is probably HUGE.

GMs and the Poisoned World Environment
If you're just starting with the Poisoned World, we recommend you start with "non-descript environments" only specifying as many details as necessary to the narrative of the session you'll be running. If you believe that location will become useful to you as a GM, then check the Wiki to see if anything usable is there and/or just stake a claim on a Strata.

Intentionally, there is a great deal to explore which translates to making it up as you go along. Respect the work of others who have already "laid claim" to certain Strata or Landmarks or Ideas, working together with them to make an interesting, collaboratively constructed setting.