Broken Weave

Imagine a typical high fantasy setting — it could even be the one your group is playing in now. Now, imagine if the Weave of magic — a ubiquitous force which holds the fabric of the universe together — was broken. What would happen? What would it do to the magical landscapes and the creatures that call this fantasy world home? What about divine beings or arcane artefacts that are infused with magic? How could people survive in a land so fundamentally altered? 

These are the questions you face in Broken Weave.

How and why the Weave broke is lost to time. Myths claim it was a great arcane cataclysm, or a god-killer who slew the heavens with one fell swipe. Some pragmatists claim it was simply the inevitable outcome of too many people pulling too hard upon the Weave, until it came apart in their greedy hands. Regardless of the reason, the Weave broke. 

Magic unravelled and became a twisting force of uncontrollable change and entropy we now call Decay. Cities fell overnight as the arcane wonders of civilisation came apart at the seams with cataclysmic results. The moon fractured and rained down upon the world in fiery chunks. The gods died and their corpses fell from the heavens to scatter across the land. And the world itself twisted and cried out in protest. Even the minds of the most mundane mortal came undone, eroding like moth-eaten cloth as they cried out for salvation that would never come. 

When the worst of the collapse was over, the world was changed in ways still not fully understood. The Weave once bound reality together. Without it, time and space shift and change at a whim. Cities, now ruined by calamity and made toxic by arcane relics, lie abandoned — or worse, haunted by the gnarled remnants of their people. Strange cults harvest god-corpses for the faint power of their rotting flesh. Even the most kind-hearted soul must face the inevitable pull of Decay — their bodies and minds constantly eroded at the edges by horrifying curses.

Yet life goes on. Sages say the Breaking was centuries ago, so now the survivors must adapt to the Broken World. They must resist Decay and build Havens, to survive together and keep the darkness at bay one accursed day at a time. The bravest go out to forge connections with other survivors, to reclaim the land with every footstep and rekindle memory with every spoken word. Then, when the decayed monsters crawl from the wilderness to threaten the survivor’s fragile homes, they fight back with everything they have.

Your only defence against Decay are the companions at your side, and the hope for a better world. Hope is a tangible power in the Broken World, one which can spur you to heroic deeds in the face of oblivion, or even hold reality together… for a time. After all, Hope is hard won and easily lost.

The Broken World is a strange and psychedelic one. A once beautiful world viewed through a broken kaleidoscope — terribly grim in some ways, hauntingly beautiful in others. A place where you simply never know what fate will throw at you next. Step off the well-trod path unprepared and you may find yourself stumbling into a shattered city that wasn’t there the day before, or hunted by a contorted monster that screams with the voice of an old friend. 

So gather your allies and prepare to defend your home from the creeping end of all things… and maybe one day you can repair the Broken Weave.