Chapter 3: The World
The setting in pieces, magik and reactors, Majicoil and Caldera, Coilers and Coiltech, Slag, the Contractors Guild, the five races, mutation, and naming conventions.
Magik and Reactors
Magik is the raw spiritual and energetic substrate of the world. It exists naturally in veins, pools, and growing things. The industrial revolution found a way to extract, concentrate, and burn magik in reactors: massive installations that power cities, trains, factories, weapons, lights, and the conveniences of modern life.
Reactors are useful. They are also catastrophic. They leak, overflow, and saturate the surrounding environment. Wildlife mutates freely and dramatically: frogs the size of construction trucks, rat packs with shared consciousness, bears with bone-plated skin. These creatures are dangerous, unnatural, and often carry Crystal Shards inside their bodies.
Natural magik sources produce a different kind of change. Creatures near them become elegant and strange: glassy scales, antlers like sculpture, fur that glows faintly. Elder natural-magik creatures are breathtaking to behold and worth a fortune. Majicoil captures them as living batteries for powerful military systems. Most people would be horrified by the practice. Majicoil does it anyway.
Majicoil and Caldera
The reactor era began in Caldera, a city built around a natural swell of magik. Scholars studied it, engineers exploited it, and industrialists eventually organized into Majicoil, the corporate-military power that controls most refined magik energy.
Caldera is both a city and a company. The wealthy live near the upper rim and corporate decks. The poor live lower in the bowl, closer to heat, leak, and mutation. The city glows with refined magik, and the world grows more damaged each year.
Majicoil owns reactors, pipelines, military arms, research divisions, energy contracts, and political influence. To oppose Majicoil is to oppose the lights coming on at night.
Coilers
Coilers are Majicoil's magik-enhanced soldiers. They use embedded crystal systems, augmented reflexes, Coiltech weapons, and controlled mutation. A standard Coiler is a Veteran-tier opponent. Specialized Coilers exist at higher tiers: Senior, Tempered, Crowned, and stranger experimental variants.
Most Coilers do not live long. The augmentations burn through them.
Coiltech
Coiltech is magik-infused equipment manufactured or controlled by Majicoil. It is not a separate weapon class. It is a property that can appear on weapons, armor, shields, prosthetics, and accessories. Coiltech rules appear in Chapter 11.
Coiltech is rare, expensive, restricted, hard to repair, and powered by Magcells. A Coiltech Light Ranged weapon is effectively a pistol-like weapon. A Coiltech Heavy Ranged weapon is effectively a rifle-like weapon. A Coiltech shield is a powered barrier shield. A Coiltech prosthetic is a replacement limb with industrial magik running through it.
Encountering Coiltech in the field means something serious is happening.
Slag
Slag is the industrial world's reliable material: dense, durable, resistant to magik corrosion, and common in infrastructure. It is used for armor plating, reactor housings, gates, frames, tools, locomotive chassis, and military construction.
The Contractors Guild
Most dangerous work goes through the Contractors Guild: monster extermination, ruin expeditions, escort duty, scavenging, sabotage, recovery, mapping, and any job too dangerous for ordinary workers.
Being a Contractor is not prestigious. It is the job people take when no safer choice remains. The guild does not ask why. It asks whether someone will go into the ruin and come back with proof.
The Five Races
The five sapient peoples are stable lineages that emerged from long-term magik mutation. Modern humanoids rarely mutate actively unless altered by Majicoil or exposed to unusual magik over long periods.
| Race | Description | Stat Modifier |
|---|---|---|
| Human | Adaptable and common. No glaring weakness. | +2 to all Stats |
| Saurian | Reptilian humanoids, physically tough and direct. | +5 Constitution, -5 Intent |
| Lepid | Tall, lean, four-armed, compound-eyed, moth-antennaed, fast-reacting. | +5 Dexterity, -5 Spirit |
| Vulpin | Foxlike, clever, ambitious, fragile, strong mental force. | +5 Intent, -5 Constitution |
| Dryad | Small, bark-skinned, plant-haired, deeply attuned to life. | +5 Spirit, -5 Dexterity |
Mutation
Contractors should begin as ordinary members of their race. Mutation is something that happens through play, not a starting feature. Modern humanoid mutation usually comes from:
- Majicoil augmentation.
- Long-term proximity to natural magik.
- Severe exposure to reactor leakage or experimental Coiltech.
Wildlife mutates much faster and more dramatically than humanoids.
Names
People in this world have strange names. Modern English names usually feel wrong. First names are often uncommon objects, materials, weather phenomena, or evocative nouns. Last names are often trait-words tied to the Contractor's highest Stat at creation.
Sample first names: Pipe, Cinder, Rivet, Gauge, Static, Latch, Bramble, Quill, Kindling, Ember, Harrow, Tether, Lichen, Corrode, Drift, Hollow, Piston, Solder, Valve, Cobweb, Cog, Fulcrum, Marrow, Silt, Grit, Thimble, Lantern, Bone, Ash, Rust, Gravel, Spindle, Husk, Filigree, Scree, Brindle, Mortar.
Last names by highest Stat:
- Constitution: Stone, Bulwark, Anchor, Ironhide, Forge, Bastion, Granite, Hollowed, Marrow, Dense, Bedrock, Ballast.
- Dexterity: Swift, Thorn, Quickstep, Feint, Glass, Whisper, Arrow, Needle, Twitch, Clip, Spry, Slate.
- Intent: Ember, Verse, Prism, Focus, Veer, Coil, Mind, Beacon, Kindling, Thrum, Spark, Cinder.
- Spirit: Grove, Hollow, Clear, Bloom, Mercy, Kindred, Vigil, Wellspring, Glow, Tender, Bough, Stillwater.
Chapter 2: Foreman Principles and Table Expectations
What the Foreman owes the table, when to be harsh or generous, and the resources that must never be handwaved.
Chapter 4: Character Creation
The nine-step process for creating a Contractor, from choosing race and rolling Stats through starting skills, equipment, and a one-sentence motivation, plus joining an existing campaign.