hey everyone im abt to drop a silly amount of worldbuilding for something that was supposed to be an SR fic but idk i might make it it's own thing but i will definitely struggle with making the characters lol. very rough and unfiltered with no editing. good luck reading this
the setting i am planning is simultaneously dark-ish fantasy set in a weird time period that incorporates things from the 17th-19th centuries with a lot of funky magic and also sci-fi apocalypse at the same time. this makes sense i swear.
the setting's timeline starts in 2010 in our world, when the large hadron collider is able to successfully smash its first particles together at silly high speeds (it took them like 2 years after opening to get there due to. accidents i think. idk.) and instead of the thing everyone was worried about, which was "dude it's going to make microscopic black holes that fuck us up!!!! it's gonna make weird new particles which could hypothetically enter a state of runaway fusion and eat up the earth and make a really weird fucked up compact star!!!!" (they literally called these things strangelets. they are so mean to them.) we get an entirely brand new issue!!!
what is this brand new issue?? uhhh we uh. accidentally created a temporary tear between the planes and we managed to get really unlucky and instead of getting some silly ass plane like the water plane or jumpscaring a bunch of dead people in the afterlife plane we found the one with the rotting corpse of a dead god in it. yeah, some of the flesh and bone came through. like an absolutely tiny amount but it's still enough to completely pollute the earth even though the tear sealed itself seconds later. sorry we didn't raise the alarm straight away (even though an early alarm would do nothing) all the personnel in the LHC and all living humans within a 37km radius were too busy experiencing severe divine madness. yeah the world's gonna end now. sorry. it happens. anyways this completely unpredictable catastrophic Fucky Wucky releases a metric fuck ton of magical energy into the world, and basically causes a magic-based apocalypse. humans are not built for magic exposure so people end up undergoing a process which is called (at least, in this time period) 'teratomorphosis'. essentially, the excess magic causes people to begin transforming into monsters. magical monsters, and it is the kind of stereotypical magical monsters you'd find in a fantasy setting specifically because the magic is being influenced by what everyone thinks would happen, so when this starts to happen (it's a slow but unstoppable doom) people are like "oh, like slimes?" and the magic responds with all the enthusiasm of an overworked sleep deprived 45 year old man who's worked at this one factory all his life and just goes "well Fuck, I guess we're doing Slimes now. sure." although they're all a bit weird and funky because the magic is being exposed to roughly 6 billion different intepretations at once (this also causes regional monster distribution!!) so everything gets melted together so individual monster species can have similar traits across the board and only change as needed for their individual habitats.
this is a very slow apocalypse. takes like 15 years for all of humanity to vanish. and it is an apocalypse, as it's actually very rare for these first-wave monsters to retain their human sentience so they all start fucking shit up with all the fun new magic they can use. the teratomorphosis rolls out sort of like a wave, and it starts out as a very small exclusion zone around the LHC and affected local communities which have begun to worship a strange, unknowable god and this circle grows until it eventually covers the planet. if you're in the zone, teratomorphosis starts. the magic is still everywhere and you're absorbing it into ur body regardless of where you are, but the actual bad bit only happens if you're in the No Fun Zone. anyway as a result as time progresses more and more powerful monsters begin to emerge as people who've absorbed more magic on average begin to experience teratomorphosis.
important thing to note about this is that this means that all monsters, are technically human in a strange way. they are all direct descendants of humanity, which is also why monster hybrids end up being a thing later.
anyway, despite the fact that there is quite literally nothing that can be done to stop this people still try. the verrrry opposite side of the world to where the lhc is, is apparently in the Middle of the Fucking Ocean near the Chatham Islands, which is a part of new zealand. when we figure out that's probably going to be the last safe place a pretty big base/stronghold is set up there to try and see what can be done. it's. very hopeless. but the best and brightest of humanity still try, cataloguing as much of humanity's knowledge in a vast database at the heart of the complex. i haven't decided how many people are there but it's a significant amount. why? oho.
when the Bullshit finally reaches them we get another fun case of Regional Monster Distribution as everyone within the stronghold become the First Dragons, and they all also retain their human sentience and memories. dragons are very special in this world. they're essentially god-like, having immortality and destructive powers with almost impenetrable scales. they can still be killed (and this becomes even more true for the descendants of the First Dragons) but in this current world state there's fuck all that can do it.
an offshoot of the First Dragons end up forming a seperate faction, the Archivists. the Archivists have decided to dedicate their new lives to protecting the immense stores of knowledge they have kept safe and passing it onto the next sentient species to walk the earth.
a lot of time passes, now. like, a lot. during this time the Archivists also find out that whilst modern technology is fine around magic energy, the more rudimentary and historical kinds of electricity based technology (which would most likely be all the next sentient race could make for a while) don't vibe with magic and throw a hissy fit over it. so they put that on the backburner and figure out magic based tech (which is also better for the enviroment in an ironic way)
gonna try to keep it brief but essentially Humans rock the fuck up again. nobody knows why. but they're back, baby! second-wave humans (as the dragons call them) are actually used to magic in their environment, and do not undergo teratomorphosis unless they absorb too much magic which Does Not Happen unless u specifically try to fuck around.
anyways, magic is a thing. yeah! magic is mainly done through enchantments on objects (spells? bless you /j) which humans can then channel mana (or whatever the fuck your region and/or local religion calls it- there's a lot of differences in dialect here) through to activate the enchantment and Do The Thing. there's like, three main ways of gathering magic to use. stealing, sharing and the self. stealing is any kind of mana production that actively drains another source to make channelable (or active) mana, such as a power plant which sucks the life out of the surrounding enviroment, literally fucking everything a vampire does, or sacrifice. sharing is when one or more individuals pool their internal mana to use, such as group channeling (everyone sits in a funky chalk circle with matching outfits) or bonds such as soul-bonds or tethers between a summoner and their summoned creatures. the self refers to the innate magic everyone has, which is usually quite small and can only be used for simple enchanted items or incredibly over-engineered items which have their own methods of generating mana.
it is also possible for one to modify themselves to gain a bigger pool of innate magic, and some people are born like this. people like this are commonly called Magebloods, although again name varies per region. magebloods don't live very long at all, since they have to maintain a very fine balance between their insane amount of magic and losing themselves to the 'scourge of the heavens'- or, teratomorphosis. magebloods are very recognisable they all look funky cause. excess magic. which also causes health issues so even if they don't succumb to teratomorphosis they'll probably die young anyway
also at some point during history the Archivists attempt to reveal themselves to the new humans and it backfires horribly leading to the Great Culling, in which dragons were ruthlessly hunted for sport until they reached near extinction. very few of the First Dragons remain, and even less of the Archivists. i love this setting i will expand on it more in the future i swear i have SO many ideas