Hey everyone, I’ve been building out the world for my wip the ‘Fractured Inheritance Saga’ and wanted to share the synopsis for Book 1: The Fall of Light. This first book sets up the crash of the Formation Matrix, shows life under the UEA, and introduces the lingering mystery of the Architects. It’s the foundation for the saga, and I’d love to hear what stands out to you. The intended audience is YA/NA Sci-Fantasy readers — so I’m especially curious if the premise feels accessible and compelling at that level, while still carrying the depth world-builders appreciate. 195 years after the crash of the Universal Formation Crystal, humanity survives within domed cities under the stratocratic United Earth Authority and the shadow influence of the Legacy Council — four powerful families who rose from the Rift Wars. Each year, adolescents are conscripted to New Kyoto, where contact with shards of the Formation awakens abilities that dictate their futures. Jake Garmin, however, awakens nothing. Branded a non-manifest in a world where power is status, he faces ridicule from peers and reassignment by the Authority. But Jake refuses to let failure define him. Haunted by visions of his missing mother — once a decorated soldier who vanished on a classified mission — he becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth behind her disappearance, even as his father deflects his questions. Within the Academy, rivalries with Legacy heirs and the constant reminder of class divisions draw Jake into a web of political intrigue, where factions maneuver behind closed doors and every ability is currency. His supposed failure masks a deeper anomaly: a flicker of resonance tied to Phenix, one of the last Architects whose fall seeded the Formation itself. But the dangers of New Kyoto extend far beyond its walls. Beyond the Dome lies the Southern Ridge — a vast scar of fractured land where crystal resonance has warped creatures into deadly forms. When Jake’s squad is deployed into this wilderness, survival becomes as great a test as politics, and the mystery of the Formation proves more dangerous than anyone dares to admit.

I might have already talked about this in the comments under a different post, but wanted to make it its own topic of conversation, so take this idea as a prompt as well, and feel free to add your own takes on the idea. Chaos and Order are the two fundamental forces inherent to all existence: - Chaos is the force of creation, change, and motion. - Order is the force of stagnation, logic, and stability. Either force alone is incapable of creating something interesting and lasting: - Chaos would end up destroying whatever it created by creating something on top of it immediately as it lacks patience. - Order would choke a world to a cold, stationary death because it lacks creativity. When the two exist alongside one-another, or even mix together in any ratio, they end up creating living, changing, interesting things. The creation of the universe Eldara resides in happened at random in the eternal sea of Chaos. It popped into existence by sheer chance, and Order immediately took hold of it, creating a sort of stable bubble in the Chaos-ocean. Another thing I like to believe is that any sufficiently large amount of energy or complex-enough system will develop a kind of consciousness of its own, and so, the "bubble" itself - the barrier between Chaos and Order - is a kind of god, called Eldritch. It acts partially as if it was alive, with a kind of metaphysical metabolism, and healing from injuries sustained from both without and within. This is relevant because the timeline of the Mortal Realm, which hosts Eldara and its star system, is made of the combined/woven-together individual timelines of a new set of gods called the Nex, which, in turn, all sprout inwards from what is the equivalent of scar tissue on the side of Eldritch, following a rupture event caused by a particularly strong wave of creation within the Chaos-Ocean.

Mortal souls disperse upon death, their energy returning into the immediate surroundings of the thing that died. The process of dispersion can take anywhere from seconds to hours and in some extremely rare cases, days, in which case it's more of a gradual degradation into nothingness. Once someone is dead, they can not be brought back, not even by the gods, as the mortal soul is way too complex for even them to recreate fully. If they attempted to do so, the best they could do would be a physical copy of the body and some semblance of the soul, which would nonetheless be very obviously not the deceased person. What might happen during the process of dispersion is that if the dying soul is in high enough concentrations of magical energy, its constituent parts might fuse together instead of fizzling away, forming an elemental. The elemental will have some echoes of their personality (and in fact there are so-called elemental traps that capture the full soul at the moment of death, trying to keep as much of the person alove as possible), but will, again, not be the deceased person. Instead, it is a new being; a sentient string of magical energy with a single, pure magical element to its very existence. A newborn elemental is very active and highly temperamental, but over time they tend to calm down, and if they don't manage to find a good source of magic to keep them active, they get slow and eventually settle down in a single place, where they then crystallize, creating a shell of crystal around themselves, whose structure is perfectly fit to store the elemental's energy. These crystals can be collected and used by mages as batteries or by non-mages as piezo-arcanic sources of magic (squeezing them together agitates the elemental inside and makes it do something related to its element). If the crystal is left undisturbed long enough, it will sibsume the elemental entirely, effectively killing it. These crystals are typically stronger but react the same way as if the elemental was still in them. The notable difference is that they can absorb (and trap) new ones, as well as form them out of nearby dying souls (thus an elemental trap).

The Known Universe has been explored and colonized. Now, only a handful of corporations control everything: - Aleph Freight Aleph's main profile is general freight and passenger service. They are responsible for the vast majority of moving people, goods, raw materials, and information across the universe. They also operate the banking system of the known universe. They have the patents for the most reliable methods of Technology-Based FTL. Their Logo is an Aleph symbol. - Iryon Cruises Iryon deals in luxury goods and services.They hold the patents for Magic-Based FTL. Their logo is a minimalist stylized rainbow, symbolizing the Greek goddess Iris. - Tiwaz Security Tiwaz is a military contractor, weapons manufacturer, security and law enforcement firm, all in one. Their logo is the Tiwaz rune. - Omega Systems Omega is a communication and network management giant, handling any and all information in the Universe. Their logo is an Omega symbol, the last letter of the greek alphabet. - Thorn Industries Thorn's main business is technological development and experimental science. Their logo is a hexagon. - Electron Processing Electron is the main resource extraction, mining, refinement, and agriculture company. Their logo is a triangle, a Greek Delta symbol, meant to symbolize a piece of amber.

Lightlice are members of the rodentia family, living exclusively on the southwestern edges of Nortia. They have adapted to the expansive cave systems, being quite small and nimble. Their name comes from them usually being viewed as pests and the crystals that protrude out of their backs. These crystals can vary in colour, usually a yellowish-green or a light blue. Lightlice crystals are components in alchemy and magic. Female lightlice do not have these crystals, and are larger than the males. They keep to the dark and are highly aggressive. It's advised to keep your distance from large lightlice that have no crystal protrusions. Male lightlice are small, along with the additions of the crystals that are highly sought after. They are docile and make for better pets. Males will try to impress the females with their singing abilities. Sometimes, males will come together and form a 'band'. If the female is impressed with the performance, the lead will leave to mate. Lightlice have been hunted for their magical components, pushing them deeper into the caves and out of more populated areas. They can be kept as exotic pets, usually only for mages and alchemists, for their crystals do eventually regrow. All in all, they're just silly little guys. :)