Vish-Tor An Age of Magic

In the heart of a broken world lies the fractured land of Vish-Tor, forever scarred by a cataclysmic magic upheaval that echoes even a millennium and a half later. It's a world where tragedy and savagery aren't distant tales, but harsh realities imprinted into the very marrow of its dwellers. Be it under the thunderous tread of nomads in the wild, wind-swept Phloxen Steppes or amidst the ghostly whispers of the treacherous Phantom Seas, sanctuary is a rare commodity in Vish-Tor. Its legacy of catastrophe has etched a landscape of danger and beauty, a testament to the resilient spirit of its inhabitants, striving and surviving amidst the remnants of a bygone calamity.   The precious few havens that exist within Vish-Tor often lie within the realm of the Qan—kingdoms and tribes forged in the crucible of a world that once was, now obscured by the veil of annihilation. The Qan, a resilient people living in the shadow of their world's devastation, foster a culture of wary respect towards magic, a force that has wreaked untold havoc upon their land. For them, mutants are outcasts, abandoned to the merciless wilds, and deceit is no less an abomination than sorcery. Yet beneath their veneer of virtue, the Qan harbor a primal savagery, a remnant of their formidable ancestors. In spite of their scattered and fragile cities, mere shadows of the doomed ruins that litter Vish-Tor, the Qan's tenacity reverberates as a testament to their indomitable spirit.   But among the survivors, not all share the Qan's timid approach towards magic. Indeed, some have dared to adapt and thrive amidst the ceaseless radiance of arcane contamination. Few are as audacious as the Talla-Qan in their pursuit of harnessing the half-dormant magical wonders that pulsate beneath the scorched land of Vish-Tor. The Talla-Qan, a distant offshoot of the Qan, are a breed apart. They defy the stereotypical Qan features of towering height, dark hair, and ruddy skin, and instead are a kaleidoscope of wildly varied morphology and appearance, though always with their distinctive golden coloration. Within a single Talla-Qan lifetime, one might observe a spectrum of height, build, skin tone, hair, and even sexual expression—an peculiarity, no doubt, born from their chosen proximity to magically contaminated sites.   Veiled in enigma, there exists yet another set of inhabitants, the Kivlin, meaning 'Outsiders' in the Old Qanic tongue. Unlike the Qan or Talla-Qan, the Kivlin aren't a single people but a variegated tapestry of divergent groups, each thriving in the wildest and untamed corners of Vish-Tor. To the Qan clergy, they represent everything unsightly and abhorrent—the spellcasters, mutants, aberrations—the living embodiments of their world's chaotic state. Yet the Kivlin, or the Fyldenn as they might identify themselves, perceive an intrinsic connection to Vish-Tor that transcends the understanding of Qan and Talla-Qan. They do not merely endure or reject the unruly magic, but wholeheartedly embrace it, with outcomes as diverse as they are.   Even the clearly monstrous among them, the Tel-Kiv—who straddle the blurred line between ferality and sentience—are seen to be in consonance with the rhythm of Vish-Tor. In their varied degrees of harmony, the Kivlin represent a rich spectrum of responses to the magical forces at play, each demonstrating a unique form of adaptation and survival in this daunting landscape. They stand as reminders of the countless ways life continues to persist and evolve amidst the relentless, mutable tempest of Vish-Tor's magical doom.