Dammerung

I definitely have certain... Repeated themes... I come back to a lot. It's always slightly annoying since, even if I'm not always original, I do prefer not to repeat myself too much.
Then again, given the number of worlds I'm writing (even with all the days I miss), revisiting things sometimes is probably inevitable.


For hundreds of years, the world of Dammerung has been bound, more or less, by the strict laws of mundane reality.
But only more or less - because, centuries ago, there was magic. And though that magic has long faded from the world, the artifacts it left behind remain, somehow, functional.
Even the most minor and commonplace of them are able to shape empires. Take, for example, fire crystals. If one sings to them precisely the correct syllables, they do exactly as one would expect, catching aflame without need of fuel or oxygen.
The fascinating thing about the flame crystals is that they violate conservation of energy - to such a degree, indeed, that for the last several decades it has been possible to play a recording of the required song using only a portion of the power that it is possible to extract from the heat of the fire.
Although the power output per unit time is, obviously, extremely limited, this allows fire crystals to be used as portable power-sources, for devices which need to operate constantly for extended periods without the opportunity to refuel.
Other commonplace magical items have similarly important uses. There are flutes which summon small woodland animals from thin air (to be used as a food source), and stones which sing lullabies whenever something near them moves (often used in security systems).
Indeed, commonplace magical items are probably the most useful, even though rarer artifacts might have more obvious power. And there is a very important reason for this - sustainability. Even the newest of these objects are hundreds of years old. Over time they are liable to be lost or broken. Even things like fire crystals, which remain reasonably commonplace, are far rarer than they were a century ago. More forward looking nations have already, on occasion, chosen to start wars to secure abundant supplies of them. It is, generally speaking, unwise to base any particularly vital part of one’s society upon something completely irreplaceable. In Pala, there is a crystal which allows the user to see any thing or place they desire. But a nation which relied upon the knowledge gained from it and neglects more mundane means of information gathering would risk being blinded utterly by a well-placed rock.
Empires have fallen because they were too reliant upon the magic of items they could not replace. Famously, the Ghengi Empire, which fell almost four centuries ago, and which owned the majority of the known world at the time. The Empire was so successful in part because of the ring gates, twelve large bronze ring, the smallest of which had a radius of more than ten feet across, and which allowed people to travel instantly between the rings. It transpired when one was cracked in a riot in the imperial province of Daré, that the rings worked only if all twelve were intact - or maybe the one that was cracked had simply happened to be the ‘master’ ring. Noone knows. But whatever the case, the Empire found itself suddenly deprived of the ability to quickly transport its armies - the majority of which were now stranded oversees, months from home and with limited supplies. The empire found itself unable to prevent its own richer provinces from declaring independence, nor even from expanding their own borders. As more and more provinces declared independence, the authority of the emperor dwindled, and he found that there was little he could do to maintain order. Until only eight years after the riot at Daré, the Empire’s capital city of Ghenn was sacked, and the Emperor Anthony killed.
As a result of this, and of other similar incidents, modern ‘civilized’ nations (defined broadly as those nations which occupy the same land the Ghengi Empire once did) are rarely willing to rely upon any magical artifact they cannot replace. Which, itself, means that the impact they have on society is generally limited.
The world today is esseintially tripolar - as in many worlds, there are a  handful of secondary powers, and numerous lesser nations (most of whom are in some sense dependent upon a more powerful nation), but there are three powers capable of shaping the course of the world. Of these, two claim liniage from the fallen Ghengi Empire - one because it occupies the city of Ghenn, the other because it was founded by the Forlorn Regiment, a group of Imperial soldiers who found themselves stranded in the Reimal Islands when the Empire fell.