Eldritch Machines and Occult Sciences
Before the Godswars, there existed a technological and magically advance civiliation - a coalition of races, led by the Fyreen before the rise of their Nerathilords. To them, magic is a form of science, which can be studied and taught. Nevertheless, few people possess the skill required to become a wizard or an artificer, and high-level magic remains rare. Resurrection and teleportation aren't part of everyday life, but citizens harness lesser effects and use them for the common good.
In blistering imperial forges, a team of artificers maintain a creation forge that produces steel golems, great airships, or the soul-bound legions. Hidden in the trackless wilderness, druids guard the seals that keep the Wraith-World from consuming the material world. In the sewers below San Francillieth, a mad necromancer puts the final touches on a device that will turn the city's residents into undead. Such contraptions are categorized as eldritch machines - immense devices of magic and science that are too large to be moved easily. Marvels of magic and engineering that require special components and conditions to function. Not inheriently evil, without these eldritch machines, the Nerathilord's could never reach across the cosmos and pluck a star from the sky - allowing them to transcend their mortal forms.
Many turned to the undeath network to escape the Godswar, in attempt to survive the reality rending terrors. Others weathered the world shaking calamity that sunk the old world, and reshaped Ulgrotha as the walls between reality were ripped away. It is an unfortunate truth that the Eldritch Machines and occult sciences were responsible for weapons that blight the land and scour the soil. But yet, some are used for the good of the world's survivors.
Utility
The Eldritch Machines are more akin to blind, idiot gods than to simple machines; designed to DO, rather than to THINK or UNDERSTAND. These massive arcano-tech were designed to harnesses elemental and arcane magic to power magical items, usually through powerful conduits or sources, and is an innovation found only within the realms of the Nerathi Imperium. Few of the machines were similar to each other - as the artificers jealously guarded their secrets. Going so far as to sabotaging each other in the Final Days in a gamble to save their own lives.
Because of this, nearly every arcano-tech machine has a singular purpose: covering anything from the production of airships, harvesting symbiotic entities that needed a host, hybridization of lives and souls, autonomous defenders made of steel, or even controlling alien entities used as siege weapons. Many now lay dormant, waiting for a response from some long lost central mind.
The most important, however, were the Crown of Stars: a garland crown, made from the furthest stars of the cosmos. A transformative machine worn by a nobility that sought divine power - many were contemporary figures who saw themselves as akin to old gods even before ascending to their thrones. The Nerathilords were allowed to lead as they see fit, as a result, some territories seem wildly different from others. They say that were one were to travel the length of Ulgrotha, they'd find themselves in a different empire every span. Only the Nerathi Overlord's law unites them.
When they changed, these new gods - the Nerathilords - offered complete dominance of a single aspect of reality. War, Secrets, Fire, Stone, and the like. The relationship to their territory can grow deeper than any could imagine. The line between them and their land blurs. In their boundless arrogance the Nerathi Imperium believed they had created Gods, when they merely made flesh that which was already divine.
The second most important machines were the supplemental forces of the Imperial Guard: soul-bound soldiers, connected through eldritch machines. The process was technically successful, but most of these defenders have been left mindless husks - souls harnessed and stored in lightning powered sarcophagus-like nodes nestled throughout Imperial Cities.
It was the Nerathilord's Priests were central to these cults, and foremost in political power and influence. It was because of them that the common people gave themselves up to salvation. In the Final Days, they forcibly conscripted the unlucky and criminal into the soul legions - with some remnants of children, the elderly, or the mournful dead, who still crave warmth and company.
The occult sciences seemed to have existed forever, waiting for the proper cocktail of various poisons, steroids, and heavy metals to unlock their latent abilities. Advance healing poultices, flying cities, limbic prosthetics, ability echancers and mutagens as just a few examples of the occult sciences that helped the common folks of the Nerathi Imperium.
INVENTOR
It was said that Magroth - The Momentary God, The Greatest of Any Whoever Led Us, the Hubris in the Blood - was the first to invent the Eldritch Machines. An inspiring arcano-tech savant who came from a clan of farmers, who slayed the Golden Dragon that regularly demanded tribute from him family. Legend says that Magroth say he had stolen one the elves' Seldarine - their White God Ships - in order to study their design. Combining it with the pryosilver arts of the dwarves and the ancient monoliths of the Imaskari - The First Men. How all these occult sciences synergized has been lost in the ashes of the Godswar.
Some Areas of Studies
Ethereal Energy:
Attempting to understand how the Wraith World works. They believe that this Ethereal Plane - and by extension the many worlds beyond ulgrotha - can be an energy source, a medium of communication, and perhaps even a living entity. These occultists want to understand everything otherworldly, building ether-powered vessels that sail between the stars, obelisks that transmit eldritch energy from plane to plane, and other wonders undreamed of in this primitive age.The Animator:
Some occultists want to imbue everything around them with some semblance of life, or at least motility. In a world where someone else has to open a door, swing a sword, or build a wall is a world these Occultists live in only reluctantly. They want swords that swing themselves, doors that open of their own volition, and an army of alloyed neo-golems to build the walls for them. Often times relying on rare materials, esoteric components, and strange power sources.Unified Theory of Necromancy:
Those who dabble in some form of Necromancy are common amongst Ancestor Worshippers, but some wonder whether they’re just coasting on eons-old techniques. Many of the restrictions of necromancy seem arbitrary to these scholars and ripe for challenge. Must one die to become undead? Can one become both living and dead simultaneously? What is the connection between necromancy and evil, and can that connection be severed? Moreso even than with most occult scientists, the villagers are going to hate and fear these pracitioners.
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