A fantasy setting where multiple universes have ‘crashed’ into one another and permanently fused, leading to a realm of seeming anachronisms and strange technology. People themselves are in many places sparse in the current age, but despite being spread widely they manage to survive with relative ease using this technology which strangely seems to synthesize elements of all the worlds involved, implying its having been developed post merge.
It is unknown exactly how many universes were involved in this ‘crash’, but it is believed there were four basic types:
Mundane: Full shroud of suppression with no additional elements. No magic or the like.
Mystical, not free: Shroud of suppression with supernatural elements exempt to it. Power exists only on the terms of these supernatural elements.
Free: No shroud of suppression. Power can be gained through will being worked in various ways.
Mundane with holes: Shroud of suppression with arbitrary exemptions, allowing power or new forces to come into existence according to certain metaphysical ‘laws’ native to that original universe. These laws may also empower or shape those things which fall under thr eexemptions The shroud within such a universe therefore functions as something like a ‘cookie cutter’, ensuring a given ‘shape’ to what power comes into existence.
In the merged universe, the remnants of the shrouds of suppression are both stretched thin and inconsistent as to where they actually are in effect, and how much. Individuals can generally cultivate power freely, just with a slowed process in places. Similarly, other pervasive supernatural forces have also become stretched thin and inconsistent as to their presence, but individuals and their creations have been able to re-strengthen or ‘re-densify’ certain such forces.
The physical landscape is chaotic, consisting of multiple Earths, one of which, called ‘Polyearth’, is a fusion of multiple, with an expanded atmosphere and numerous floating islands and massive crevices within its central globe.
Most universes with multiple planes have had their multiplicity ‘flattened’ by the collision of cosmos, with all their planes joining the central space, becoming simply polarized territories within the merged cosmos. However, there are vestiges of distinct dimensions.
There is a rumored ‘Dark Master’, called by some a demon but claimed by others to transcend boundaries, who orchestrated the collision, and either directly designed or caused the design of the post-merge technology. However, even if all of this is true, defeating him will not undo the merge, only stop whatever mysterious, presumably evil purposes he had, if those purposes are not already fulfilled with the occurrence of the merge.
Although the universe has vast potential, already partially realized in places, it is still in a state of chaos, and thus humanity must still strive to establish coherency in its vast, promising yet turbulent substance.
A powerful tool in this endeavor is the Cosmic Mechanical System. This is a pervasive force of order, efficiency, development and adaptation that originated from one of the second variety of universe, which has now adapted itself to this new universe, specifically by being usable by anyone but drawing on their power to power their use of it. It is an immaterial machine that can reshape the world, break it down, store parts of it and build it back up again, in no small part due to being able to store objects and raw materials in discrete, dimensional containment. As part of its self-adaptation, the system has also made a mirror of itself for spiritual and other preternatural essence, although its grip on these things is more tenuous. Through these, one can truly reshape the universe, albeit only in a manner befitting of one’s power, and costly of one’s personal energy.