Exilum Novum

As compiled by the Office of Rift Affairs, under the authority of the Imperium Novum Senate and the Collegium Arcanum.

Overview

Exilum Novum is not a single-born realm but a patchwork of lands, peoples, and skies drawn together by the phenomenon known as the Rift. Every two centuries, a new wound tears through the firmament, carrying entire provinces, mountains, or seas into this world. Each arrival brings not only terrain and populace but also the lingering threads of foreign gods, beasts, and memories. No world has ever been taken twice; each contribution is singular and irrevocable.

The Imperium Novum, descendants of the Nova Province of Rome Rifted here eight centuries ago, claims the central mantle of order, striving to bind the disparate arrivals into a unified world. To the Romans, this place is both exile and rebirth—an exilum novum, a new home shaped by steel, stone, and spellcraft.

Nature of the World

The geography of Exilum Novum is fractured yet whole. Rifted provinces lie side by side with ancient forests, steppe kingdoms, and glacial coasts. Where once oceans lapped against familiar shores, now they meet foreign mountains and drifting islands conjured by arcane residue. Travelers may pass from imperial farmland to dwarven strongholds, and thence to orcish marches or halfling harbors, without crossing a true frontier—save the invisible line of history and blood.

Magic suffuses every element of the realm. The riftflame waxes brightest in the century after each arrival, imbuing mortals and gods alike with unnatural potency, before settling into dormancy—never absent, always awaiting the next breach in heaven’s veil.

Chronology of Arrivals

The annals preserved by elves and dwarves, expanded by imperial archivists, record a long sequence of Rift-borne arrivals. The Elder Courts of the Elves were the first, arriving some twenty-four centuries ago, and in their wake came the Dwarves two hundred years later. The Orcs and Goblins followed, settling as the Western Tribal Empire, their wars with elves and dwarves shaping the early epochs of the world. The Centaurs thundered into being a millennium ago, bringing the open steppe under their dominion. Eight centuries past, the Nova Province of Rome itself was cast through the Rift, founding the Imperium Novum upon conquest, law, and spellcraft. In later centuries the Halflings came with their seaborne enclaves, the Jotun with their northern raids, and the Brass Cities with their disciplined legions. The most recent Rift of Year Eight Hundred New Era is still unfolding, its banners and auguries fresh upon the horizon.

Civilisations and Relations

The Imperium Novum endures as the heart of order, governed by the Emperor, the Senate, and the Collegium Arcanum. Around them stand the other peoples of the world: the dwindling but potent Elves, keepers of old magic; the Dwarves, masters of stone and forge, who stand as equals after hard wars of attrition; the Orcs and Goblins, who press forever against the western marches; the Centaurs of the steppes, fierce traders and raiders both; the Halflings, whose ships knit together the known coasts; the Jotun, whose sea-raids chill the north; and the Brass Cities, enigmatic and disciplined, whose soldiers and sorceries defy easy understanding.

The Physical Laws of This World

All magic flows from the Rift, and its rhythm defines the ages. Arcane law teaches that the potency of the riftflame waxes most brightly in the century following an arrival and thereafter wanes, though it never disappears. Clerics channel divine currents from gods both old and newly born, while mages weave the raw stuff of riftflame into their craft. Naturalists note the emergence of flora and fauna born from these disturbances, some twisted into strange new forms, others wholly alien to any known land. In Exilum Novum, even nature itself is a legacy of exile.

Current Era: Year 801 NE

The world stands upon another threshold. Strange banners rise beyond the horizon, and auguries speak of storms that walk, palaces that drift through the clouds, and rulers whose names are yet unsung. The Imperium has lit its watchfires, while the Senate whispers of war and diplomacy alike. As ever, Exilum Novum reshapes itself—an eternal mosaic of exile and renewal.