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The world and its clansThe elves and the Ancient NanotechThe dark and the nightThe hamlet, towns and their peopleThe story: first hour, main arc, radiant questsItems with a storyCreatures of the worldThe Deep Tide
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The elves and the Ancient Nanotech

The owner's line for the game is 8-bit voxel sci-fi elves with medieval spice. The medieval side is everything the player makes and meets: workbenches, forges, hearths, spears, ships, hamlets with elders and bards. The sci-fi side is what the elves left behind: the nanotech armour and, coming, the Aether that their guns burn.

The elves

Player characters, villagers and clan folk are elves, built from voxels with one shared skeleton: one voxel body per character at 1/16 m voxels (a finer 2x pass was tried and reverted: the chunky 8-bit look is the style). Their light magic is Lumen, the mana of the game, and the five schools of magic are Radiance, Verdance, Starlight, Umbra and Tide. The sites of their light: the Lightheart Tree in the Start Grove, the Wellsprings, the Wayshrines and the Seer Stones.

"You woke under the Lightheart. So did the light, a little."
"My grandmother saw the light walk once. Tall as a tree."

The Aegis

The Ancient Elven Nanotech Aegis is a different style on purpose: dark plate with light-glow trim, silver limbs, a wrist device that throws a holographic map into the air. It is the only sci-fi thing in the shipped items (dev.aegis, category armor) and is never in loot. Wearing it turns the wearer invisible to the AI (a shimmer for other players, or nothing when the host says so), and every power below is its own toggle:

invisibility, god mode, flight, noclip, instant dig, instant build, item spawner, time control, weather control, season control, teleport, map reveal, debug overlays, peaceful, relax support. Toggle states persist per character; invisibility and invulnerability are replicated to the other players.

Hologram: press the aim key with the Aegis on and a plexus-style map hangs above the wrist, showing terrain relief, biomes, settlements, Voronoi borders, players, enemies, caravans and sites, with scroll zoom and click to teleport. It is gated behind the dev build flag plus the host setting devTools (default off).

Direction (owner): the Aegis becomes the Creative mode: the same toggles, offered as a mode of a world instead of a hidden dev item, with the nanotech as its fiction.

The Elven Tiara

The tiara is the elves' first nanotech, grown into the brow of every child of the Lightheart; it sees what the Aegis sees, dimly, and grows clearer with the metals of the deep. Every character has one from the first second (a glowing band with a gem on the brow, in one of sixteen colours chosen at creation and changed at a Lumen Font): it cannot be dropped, sold or removed, only replaced by a finer one (the Lumen Circlet at the Lumen Font, the Aether Diadem at the Aether Anvil, the Dawn Crown at the Dawn Altar). It draws a holographic view over the world: a bracket and a one-line tag on the thing under the crosshair, name tags and the next targets of the squad, and, when you look up, a map of the land hanging over you that the mouse wheel zooms. The tier sets how far and how much it shows (60 m, 120 m, 250 m, the whole map) and the perk pool widens it. See amendment 30.

Aether and the guns

The next chapter of the sci-fi side is the elven gun: steampunk fluid tanks that burn Aether, a magic fluid, instead of powder. The design so far: vials of Pale (T2), Bright (T3) and Royal (T4) Aether are the magazines; every gun of the roster of 24 is drawn in the game's own style; bullets are fluid bolts with a tracer, slower than powder and dropping with range.

The riftcaster: the first gun

The first piece of elven nanotech a new elf is trusted with is not a weapon: the Portal Gun (Portal Gun, tier 1) is a two-handed steampunk shotgun with twin barrels and a glass Aether chamber that casts portals. It is crafted at the Elven Workbench right after the First Steps Workbench step. Held, the four ability keys are its firing modes (Q Pair, F Mystery, G Dimension, T Gate); the click fires the chosen one and the aim key aims. A Pair opens a start and an end (walk into one, step out of the other, with your speed); a Mystery pellet opens a one-way rift to somewhere in the world; a dimension pellet opens a rift to one of the three pocket worlds the elves cut loose from the sky (the Shroomworld, the Crystallic World, the Ice World); a Location pellet, written by registering a place or handed over by a quest giver, stands a gate ring that leads there. A pellet is a bead of Aether that remembers a place (Mystery Pellet remembers none, which is why it can lead anywhere).

"It opens a door where you ask, and a door where it likes. Learn which is which."

What the elves made, in the items

Items that carry the old craft in their blurbs:

  • Ancient Bark: Bark from ancient trees: tough hafts, bows and fishing rods.
  • Aether Crystal: A crystal of aether: aether wings, arrows and nectars.
  • Cloud Silk: Cloud silk: skyweave cloth and aether wings.
  • Cloudberries: Cloudberries: tarts and aether nectar.
  • Silver Leaf: Silver Leaf: the coin of every elven market.
  • Aether Petal: A petal of an Aether Bloom, picked on the Sky Isles: seeds for cloudberries and aether brews.
  • Aether Bow: A bow: shoots arrows from your quiver.
  • Aether Staff: A staff: channels magic of its school.
  • Wildheart: Wildheart: a legendary two-handed energy, forged at an Aether Anvil from Grimbark's Heartseed, not conjured by a roll.
  • Starfall: Starfall: a legendary two-handed energy, forged at an Aether Anvil from a Skycore Shard, not conjured by a roll.
  • Voidflame: Voidflame: a legendary two-handed energy, forged at an Aether Anvil from the Crown of Dusk, not conjured by a roll.
  • Portal Gun: The Portal Gun, an elven riftcaster: fire a pair of portals, walk into one and step out of the other; Q F G T pick the shot.
  • Mystery Pellet: A bead of Aether with no memory of a place: the Portal Gun spends it to open a one-way rift to somewhere unknown.
  • Aether Pistol: An elven pistol: quick shots of burning Aether from a glass tank. Fires from the one hand; four fast shots heat it and it must vent.
  • Vapour Rifle: A slender long gun: slow, flat, precise Aether bolts. Hold the right mouse button to look down the barrel.
  • Mistcaster: A flared brass blunderbuss: one shot throws a cone of five Aether pellets. Deadly close, useless far.
  • Pale Aether Vial: Pale Aether: a cool, thin magic fluid distilled from motes and moonroot. Carry it in the quiver slot; R pours a vial into a gun tank.
  • Bright Aether Vial: Bright Aether: a golden, hotter fluid distilled from glowcap and dusk eyes. Hits harder than the pale grade.
  • Royal Aether Vial: Royal Aether: a violet, heavy fluid distilled from glimmerstone. The strongest fluid an alembic can make.
  • Aether Wings: A glider: wear it, then hold jump in the air to glide.
  • Ancient Elven Nanotech Aegis: The Ancient Elven Nanotech Aegis, worn in Creative mode: it flies, shrugs off all harm and builds at a thought.
  • Aether Nectar: A lumen food. Eat to fill a food slot: it feeds you for a while, and each kind fills only one slot.
  • Lumen Circlet: A Lumen Circlet: it melds into your brow at once and your Elven Tiara grows to tier 2, with the full view of the squad out to 120 m.
  • Aether Diadem: An Aether Diadem: it melds into your brow at once and your tiara grows to tier 3, the full view out to 250 m and threats seen through walls.
  • Location Pellet: An Aether bead that remembers one place; hold the riftcaster and hold interact on the ground to write your spot into a blank one.
  • Spore Pellet: An Aether bead that remembers the Shroomworld: load it in the Portal Gun and open a portal into the spore-lit hills.
  • Rime Pellet: An Aether bead that remembers the Ice World: load it in the Portal Gun and open a portal onto the Europa crust.
  • Crystal Pellet: An Aether bead that remembers the Crystallic World: load it in the Portal Gun and open a portal into the glass spires.
  • Heartseed: A heartseed: the living core of Grimbark the Elder; it is forged into the Wildheart energy at an Aether Anvil.
  • Skycore Shard: A skycore shard: the core of Nythara, the Dim Wyrm; it is forged into the Starfall energy at an Aether Anvil.
  • Crown of Dusk: A crown of dusk: the circlet of the Fallen King; it is forged into the Voidflame energy at an Aether Anvil.