Soon after I came on to the team, the founders felt that the project needed a foundational piece of fiction to flesh out the world, its history, and its base conflict of magic vs. technology. I was given this task. The result was a short story titled "An Unfortunate Affair" - a tale a young mage's exciting adventure in a new and unfamiliar world.
The entire story was later released to the community in order to introduce them to the universe, and I think it serves as a great example of narrative world building. Many of the story's characters and locations found their way into the game. Below is an excerpt from this story.
AN UNFORTUNATE AFFAIR
[NOTE: This is an excerpt from a much longer piece.]
Perriman entered Tarant via the Kensington Broadway, a wide, evenly-paved street lined on both sides with trees and shrubbery. To say it was an attack on the senses was a vast understatement. Hawkers espoused the integrity of their wares through brass megaphones, their brightly colored wagons dressed in hand painted signs and placards. A throng of people gathered around two brawling, shirtless street toughs, and Perriman thought he might have to bring his powers to bear, when he realized that money was changing hands on the outcome. Gangs of street urchins ran unchecked through passing pedestrians and carriages, engaged in acts of mischief and tomfoolery while their older (although, unfortunately, not wiser) counterparts stalked the edge of the crowd, seeking the wide-eyed tourist or fat-pocketed foreigner. Men were smartly dressed in coat and hat, with a stiffly starched collar for every perfectly knotted tie, while the women on their arms wore conservative, flowing gowns in the colors of summer.
The Kensington ended in a large, gated archway, constructed of granite and trimmed in intricate metalwork. It stood atop the crest of a hill, and he stopped there, among many others, to gaze down into the valley and upon the city of Tarant.
It was like nothing Perriman had ever seen.
Tarant sprawled below him, like a great beast slumbering in the shallows of the gulf of Morbihan. The River Hadrian, emptying into the gulf on the far side of the city, was stitched with iron bridges, its waters murky and choked with merchant ships piled high with the items of their captain's trade. Tarant was battle-scarred, its roads and boulevards a haphazard mesh interspersed with ramshackle houses and monolithic buildings of stone. Everywhere there was motion, from the people shuffling shoulder-to-shoulder on streets of commerce, to the shipyards where crates from the furthest corners of Arcanum came to rest in wagons and warehouses. Nearer its western edge, great billowing clouds of black smoke, belching forth from towers of plated metal, thinned into an ochre haze that blanketed the city. And strangest of all, floating lazily in the air above, a monstrous, ovular ribbed structure, a vehicle it seemed, whose variety and purpose Perriman could hardly venture a guess. His very lungs constricted at the first taste of Tarant's breath, eyes watering in the blunt sunlight of early afternoon.
"Unbelievable," said Perriman.
"Yes, quite a wonder, isn't it?" observed someone to his right. Perriman turned, and was taken aback – it was an elf! Dressed in a red velvet coat, with immaculate lace collar and matching handkerchief, he was the very image of Tarantian high-society. Truly, few outside of Tulla or Qintarra would even recognize the differences; as his thick, black hair covered his ears, the only things betraying his heritage were an unnatural fairness of skin, and the slightest narrowing of his luminous eyes. Perriman stood there, mouth agape.
"First time in the city? Welcome to Tarant, old chap," said the elf, winking. He began walking away, a young human woman at his side, and then stopped, not turning. "Some friendly advice? Take care where you wander. Magecraft and the metropolitan lifestyle do not mix well. Good day to you."
How insolent! thought Perriman as the elf and his companion sauntered away. I am a mage of Tulla, thank you very much. And I’ll wander wherever I please. He fell in with the crowd snaking its way down the hill into the chaos of Tarant.
* * * *
The young mage wandered aimlessly for an hour or so, following the whims of the bustling masses, passing in front of windowed shops and pillared buildings hung with flags and banners. The life of the city was palpable. Young boys strapped with glue buckets and rollers hung posters and signs on on every available surface, while newspaper merchants called the day’s events with worn voices, their ink-stained hands filled with rolls of newly printed page. Carriages-for-hire searched for clientele, the crowd parting and closing in their wake. Everyone seemed at once to be at ease and on edge, and Perriman soon found himself physically and mentally spent. A small, well-groomed park offered wooden benches for the general public, and he slumped into one, content to pass the remaining hours in quiet contemplation of all he had seen.
A hunched figure across the street caught his attention. His thick, short neck supported a smallish head crowned with a shock of unruly coarse hair, while dark eyes darted to and fro from beneath a pronounced brow. His arms were long and heavily muscled, and in each callused hand he carried a burlap sack of unknown content. Perriman couldn't believe his eyes, and frantically grabbed the sleeve of a passerby.
"I say! There, across the street! Do you see? Call the authorities! What manner of intrigue is this?"
The man, a simple laborer and dressed as such in a plain shirt and breeches, looked to where Perriman had indicated.
"Yes, dreadful bunch, aren't they? Nothing to worry about, though…"
"Nothing to worry about? That's an ORC!"
"Bloody half-breed, more like it. But they've been put in their place here in Tarant, that's for certain. The council put a stop to all that union drivel, and they've been right cooperative ever since."
"Union drivel…what are you talking about? Someone needs to do something!"
The man looked at Perriman, a bit crookedly, and then seemed to make an assertion. He placed a hand firmly upon Perriman's shoulder. "It’s already been done, lad. The council gave them an ultimatum, and they agreed. Orcs may be slow, but I don't know a one that would rather starve than work an extra hour for a decent wage. Listen, you might give a thought to stopping by the hospital down the street. Give you a room for free, and the doctor's there…"
But Perriman was already hurrying through the crowd. Unions? Wages? Had these people gone mad? By the time he made his way to the opposite side of the street, the orc was gone. There was a door ajar in an alleyway to his left, and he entered it, only half-believing what he saw behind it.
The door opened onto a large room, which was full of orcs just like the one he had seen. Almost in unison they looked up, eyes wary and reproachful. But it wasn't this that Perriman marveled at.
One corner of the room was piled high in what looked to be cotton; an orc, which he assumed to be the one he had observed outside, was unloading more of it from the two burlap bags. The rest of the opposite wall was taken up by something to which he could give no name, a thing full of wheels and pulleys, shaking with a life of its own and making the most awful racket. One end of the monstrosity was being fed great armfuls of cotton, and the other end spewed forth what looked to be tightly rolled bolts of cloth in myriad patterns and colors.
Perriman stood dumfounded. These things were beyond his limited scope of experience. And so, like any mage of sound judgement and good-standing, he called to mind the Lesser Rune of Knowing to divine this strange thing and the magicks involved in its operation. From there, he could best decide on the correct course of action to take.
Almost immediately there was the crack of splitting wood, and the air was filled with smoke and small flying objects. With all the commotion, Perriman's mind lost the Rune, and when the smoke had cleared he was rudely asked to leave the premises by the shop's proprietor.
* * * *
[Full text available upon request.]