The 7 Most Important Things about Charred
This is a list of the seven things that make Charred special and give it its unique character. These things are the big traits, basics that players can use to familiarize themselves with the world, and that they should be familiar with. The seven items are sorted from most to least prevalent. So without further ado, here’s the list:
1. Postapocalyptic. Charred combines low fantasy with a big dash of a postapocalyptic world. Twelve years before the current date, a magical cataclysm eradicated a large part of the continent. It caused the sun to dim permanently, plunging the world into perpetual night. Even though many people managed to survive, they have still felt the effects – bit swathes of wasteland between cities, an entire empire that sank into the ocean overnight, and vanished gods. Nobody knows for sure why this event occurred.
2. Geography. The continent is surrounded by what appears to be endless ocean. This ocean is always covered in some form of fog, making extended exploration extremely difficult and dangerous. Along with that, the world curves upward slightly, meaning that there is no horizon. And lastly, when there was still a sun, it never rose or set, but stayed stationary in the sky, always brightening and dimming to create a day-night-cycle.
3. Temporal anomalies. After the cataclysm, time itself has become unstable. It’s most severe in the wasteland – pieces of the past and future appear out of nowhere, only to disappear again shortly after. Time storms, time bubbles, areas of slowed down or sped up time – these and more phenomena have plagued the lands ever since, and sometimes extend to places outside the wasteland.
In addition, creatures have been warped by their contact with chaotic time, or have appeared in this world – and time – out of the time stream.
4. A world permeated by wild magic. Magic is ubiquitous in the world of Charred, but it is mostly in a natural, unbound state. In creates many wondrous things: floating land masses, areas with magical energies, rifts between the planes, and powerful artifacts in sunken temples and fortresses, waiting to be found. This magic is uncontrolled, unpredictable, and sometimes extremely dangerous, and perhaps unlike the magic that spellcasters control.
5. Disappeared gods. During the cataclysm the pantheon fell into turmoil. Most of the gods have stopped responding to prayers, but nobody really knows if this is because the gods have lost their power, if their connection to their worshippers has somehow been severed, or because the gods ceased to exist. The only fact that remains is that nobody can rely on divine intervention to further their cause or aid in their needs anymore.
6. The wasteland. While the bigger cities were spared, most of the land has been turned into more or less of a wasteland. It’s a desolate place with wandering monsters, bandits, dangerous terrain and wild magic. A handful of caravan routes are still used, but even so, travel through this place is dangerous for the unprepared.
7. Shades of gray. Good and evil are muddled, and things are never fully black and white. Nobody is only good or only evil, and indeed such radical behaviour – in either direction – would be met with suspicion. Most nonhuman races are also not classifiable as good or evil races; they are simply different.