Shard
In the field of planar geography, a shard is the smallest divisible unit of land. In the space of the Nebula, a shard is an encapsulated world of its own, existing as a physical body within that space. It is a sovereign space subject to it's own planar laws (see fundaments) and actuates to characterizations defined by itself. Almost as a living creature interacts with others in its own ecosystem, it enacts on other shards and can be acted upon. It is the nature of shards to form unions and create divisions of those unions, causing the migration of people, creatures, ideas and even planar laws from one world to another. So atomized is a shard, no force can divide the constituent hexes.
History in this multiverse is made and broken by the laws of the shard, by these worlds dancing in this cosmos. The fates of thousands are defined by their elegant courtship and their violent collision. Fresh and alive, and by some accounts, bleeding into the space between spaces shards maintain a cohesive identity despite the influence of other shards. Churning in a primordial nest, civilization remains within the confines of shards as bastions of control in the chaotic soup of existence. Acting as both wellsprings and cisterns for the floes of creation they are islands in a cosmic sea.
1. On the Material Nature of the Shard
A shard is characterized by the appearance of a large hexagonal landmass encapsulated in the aethereal caul of the Nebula. These large jagged plates are composed of hexagonal planes, six miles across at their widest points referred to as a Hex. Shards are formed from hex segments that are integrated along their edges into a singular geometric mass along a single plane. These segments can vary in number, typically bound between three to five in although exceptions exist in nature with a rare single hex shard and topping off the top outliers with as many as nine to twelve hexes. Much of the hexagonal shape is often obscured by the elemental material of the plane as the forces of erosion and deposition form shells around the foundational bedrock of the plane, but observation from a far enough distance or with advanced lensware reveal the hexagonal reality in a clear pattern.
The boundaries of this space exists in parallel with the outermost edge of the shard's two dimensional shape, and extend from its faces at an equal height forming a hexagonal prism. Within the boundaries of this edge exist inherant components of the shard that are dictated by their fundaments, or planar laws. These laws regulate the conditions of the shard and cause it to retain key notions of it's inherant actualization. In general the edges prevent the materials of the shard from spilling completely into the Nebular Void as shards create and manifest these fundaments, engaging in a constant state of creation which expunges excess material from it's outward edges in the form of rolling cylindrical plates. Shard magic is inherant to itself, which it innately uses to "pursue" it's apparent self actualization without self-determination. When these mechanisms experience catastrophic failure- life becomes an inevitable impossibility within the shard. Stripped of the elements essential for life, dead shards hurdle throughout the void as a bare bedrock plane that is often scraped clean of identifying features of it's previous nature, revealing to observers another piece of evidence of this cosmic geometry.
2. On the Nature of Sovereignty and Planar Laws
A shard is characterized by its own inherant laws, only ever over-ruled by laws by stellar bodies when they drift within their sphere of influence within the Nebula. Named Fundamental Laws or Fundaments these phenomenon affect the various constants a natural philosopher may take for granted in their study. Fundaments can govern a wide variety of entities within their sphere of influence, altering the physicality of the inhabitants contained within the edges of the shard on an intrinsic level. Intrinsic changes can be contextual based on other properties of the entity entering or be universal, and affect properties such as weight or color or on complex properties such as strength or durability. Futhermore this governance can extend into other models of existence as well, reaching far into transcendental domains. In this capacity fundaments can alter the nature of life and death, and also alter metaphysical constants such as the cost of a human soul, the average length of a leyline or the serenity of a dewdrop. In turn this alters the forces responsible for magic in Arcane, Occult, Primal and Divine Theory- weakening or empowering the work of casters in those disciplines.
Through leveraging Fundamental Laws, the inherit composition of a world can be set and perpetuated according to the witless sovereignty of a shard. Generational and destructive forces become activated to maintain largely unseen estabished equilibriums in population totals, approaching set elemental proportions that the plane remembers. Entire species of flora and fauna, natural and supernatural can be preserved through planar law preventing extinction, and even conserving the traits of creatures in a realm and removing the malignant results of the ruthless and uncaring Nebula surrounding it.
In regards to civilization and its changes upon nature, Fundaments work as a counterbalance to mortal work. Silently and slowly endeavoring to revert the shard, nature enacts the forces of entropy upon all that civilization creates. Rust, mold, storm, and even goblins are subtlely compelled by the Fundaments to destroy that which civilization creates and orders.
3. On the Nature of Shard-Shard Interactions and their Types
Shards, when brought into close contact with eachother will try to draw upon each other's essence and energy. Shards have a tendency to bunch together in close orbit to eachother in the aether of the Nebula, and on many such occaisions a collision is often instigated. Shards colliding can often be the inciting incident of a calamity through a phenomenon known as Convergence which occurs- instead of colliding in space and simply obliterating one another at high velocity. The frequency of this phenomenon is uncommon, although in the sectors towards the center of the Nebula, this can be a fairly common occurance.
When colliding, edges can align at several points and link shards together- allowing the migration of elemental materials, flora and fauna and inhabitants across the fused edges. This bleeding of worlds can facilitate the migration of entire species along Nebular regions, isolated shards that do not experience collisions likewise have isolated species that are far more unique than the worlds near the center of the Nebula.
Collision events have several different outcomes that can result from the trauma, that include but are not limited to the following:
- The rapid oscillation of edge poles, causing a connection that lasts a few hours to a few days between the shards before causing the shards to separate and drift apart. This is more likely to occur when the shards are fairly different from eachother.
- A large surge of energy deflecting both shards away from eachother, causing a temporary or permanent mutation in the Fundamental Laws that govern each shard. This is more likely to occur when the shards are radically different from eachother. It can be noted that this can sometimes cleave shards out alignment with eachother causing realms to divide from eachother. Nebular forces can manipulated to utilize this essential Fundament, setting the foundations for the art of Shardshaping .
- Shards begin exchanging resources and energy across their edges without fully merging- jettisonning portions off the edges and some of the components of the shards into the void. This can form a Connection between shards that are fairly similar to eachother, causing the shards also to collide less with other.
- When shards have Fundamental Laws that are similar to one another and do not contradict eachother, their respective edges can fuse together causing the land to merge as one. This merges the edges and forms a new Realm or joins a shard to a Realm
4. No Force Can Divide a Shard Into Smaller Parts
The shard is the most atomized unit of planar material. Unchanging, no magic or force can break apart the bedrock that forms a shard. While most planar materials can be transmuted into quintessence or energy, the shard plate remains unreactive, stable and solid. The essential bedrock also functions as a growth plate and an origin point for the materials that constitute the world, as indicated by its fundaments. Even the most extreme magicks and experimentation have found these structures to remain incapable of being adulterated or divisible- although they can bond to others through Stellar Body Theory and Connection Theory. If stripped entirely of material, and through essentia a shard can become inert, appearing dead and drifting through the void. Enormous (theoretical) efforts can be made to rehabilitate a shard to become functional world again.
Regionality Hierarchies
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Quadrant
Sector
Stellar Neighborhood
Realm
>>>Shard<<<
Hex
Shards seem conglomerate into realms more easily with shards who share similar inherent notions, reinforcing the connections that they have with each other. Constantly moving and colliding, shards can change affiliation as time marches onward. See Convergence for more details about this phenomenon.
Inherant or Constructed?
Classifications help dilineate the hundreds of shards from eachother using observable characteristics travelers can distinguish in the world there. It should be noted that when a criteria is assigned to a shard, it is by popular scholar classification or conventional, popular classification. A shard's visitors can readily point out the obvious differences in a world that contrasts with it's stellar neighbors but the more subtle differences may go unnoticed.
A shard's inherant notions may not be observable features, it is incredibly difficult to observe a shard from the outside without great mechanical assistance. Typically, classifications are issued by those who do not participate in the art of shardshaping and so only the most prominent notions become part of the common classification. Highly populated shards may be characterized by their prominent cultural groups, city districting or attractions all of which may not even have anything to do with the shard's inherant identity at all.
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