Origins of Hubworld: The Spokeless Aeon and the Bicaboom

Time in Hubworld is dated from the “Bicaboom,” an event which is in fact the start of measurable time. Before this point was something called called the “Spokeless Aeon” in the Sagus Consensus, a state of the world before fixity, when all was infinitely mutable and largely unpredictable. Time could not be measured, and as far as any sage today can determine, events didn’t always unfold in the beginning-middle-ending order that the modern mind takes for granted. It was the age in which many legends are supposed to have occurred, but there is no way of proving they had or establishing which versions are accurate. One theory is that the same events happened many times over, which is why there are so many competing accounts of them. What is known is that whatever kind of world there was ended in The Bicaboom. Understanding what this event was and why it happened will be among the goals motivating quests for Sages, Bards, Detectives, and others, so the details are here left vague. What can be said is that it left the following changes in its wake: the beginning of measurable time; a single sun outshining the sun gods and following a steady predictable orbit around the world (shifting slightly between a NE-SW and E-W orbit throughout the year) ; a single, spinning moon, one half adamant and one half luminite (the minerals forming the two bottom layers of the world, according to the S.C.), orbiting the world from north to south; a fixed landscape with fixed climates and predictable seasonal variation; and a thousand new beasts, including tigers, lions, wolves, and Newmans. Notably, smack-dab in the centre of the inhabitable world, beneath the solar-lunar apex, there appeared a giant mountain, visible from across the newly-formed sea ringing it. Named “Hub Mountain” by surface-dwelling races and “Dwarf Mountain” by others, this prominence became an emblem of the new reality and its fixed orbits.   The laws of mutability also changed. In the Spokeless Aeon, just about any creature could combine with any other and produce a chimerical offspring. Aside from the appearance of a few magically-created monsters, there have been no changes to the types of creatures that existed at the moment of the Bicaboom. However, the new races, the Newmans and some of the beasts who came with them, have the ability to cross-breed with certain others. Common half-Humans include Halfalfs, Halfadams, Gillmans, and Half-Orcs.   The world today counts 22,000 years from the Bicaboom (22k PB). In that time, empires have risen and fallen, gods have been chased out of the dimension, but the forms societies take and the way of life of Dwarves, Elves, Humans (including Newmans, Goldadams, and Silveradams), and everyone else remain nearly the same as they have for millennia, interrupted only by war, disaster, and monstrosities. The Newmans brought a wide array of new technologies with them but have barely advanced since. Nonetheless, Human societies have come to claim dominion over most of the world, but many of these claims are presumptive—the land teems with life that will not be ruled. Aside from the Human realms, there remain several realms reigned over by Elves or Dwarves or even (rarely) a Gnome. The Goldadams, a long-lived variety of Human that existed before the Bicaboom, have integrated with the Newmans at every level from tuber farmers to royalty and there are as many Goldadam rulers as there are Elvish and Newman ones.   Although most people have little reason to travel far or think about the world beyond the horizon, and there are many adventures close to home, Merchants, Druids, Detectives, and Yakuza maintain impressive networks of communications. Monks, Bards, Clerics, and Sages maintain several incredible libraries. But for all that, it might be the Illusionists who know the most.