Dusk

**Dusk** is a relatively small island world that consists of distinctly different northern and southern regions known as Gardyn and The Dusklands. The northern region known as Gardyn is a lush gardenscape that prospers in a fantasy Victorianesque setting. There are not vast modern technologies, but gaslights and flintlock era firearms do exist. The Dusklands are a desert wasteland with footprints of a lost world.

## The Dusklands

For those who have grown up in the Dusklands life is a mix of daily harsh survival and the dream of finding the magic of days of old. It’s a vast wasteland, but that doesn’t mean it’s void of history buried in its sands. Dotting the Dusklands expanse are what look like long lost cities of old. Collapsed skyscrapers and curious old world structures are among those archaic objects buried in sand. Most important among the signs of the ages is the *Bone Way*. A long lost railroad system. This is now a caravan route that spiders throughout the region. Tracks are nearly all long lost and buried, but occasionally they can be found as well as long abandoned way stations along these ghost trade routes.

Magic is an interesting limited commodity in the wastes. Probably more so than water. There are stories of a grand age of magic at some point in the past, but it is long gone. Word travels of rare magical items of the "old world" that still seem to work, and there are some places in the sands that seem to have their own power. Perhaps some lost thread to the magic of old. While the ways of magic are disrupted in Dusk, it's not completely gone. Those who have meticulously tried to find magic in the sands have developed an ability to occasionally harness the disjunct strands of magic remaining in the Duskland wastes. Magic users from other realms (including Gardyn to the north) find their magic works in the wastes, but it is somewhat haphazard and limited.

The desert wastes are ruled by warlords, trade companies, and regional opportunists. The larger trade settlements are along the old world railroad route and are considered vital travel hubs. The Four Winds Federacy are more or less the defacto organized trade entity that moves goods both across the sands and in Gardyn to the north.

### The Dusklands and Magic:

In modern times it is simply understood that most magic does not work in The Dusklands. Stories from The Keepers often speak of old world magic and there have often been stories of bizarre seemingly magical devices and artifacts that maintain some kind of power in the sands. The real story of Dusk is thousands of years ago the world of Dusk was a thriving modern civilization, but that civilization was ruined by war. The outcome being both the northern and southern factions at war suffered greatly, but the southern region of Dusk was so ruined in the destruction that the very raw strands of magic in the world became disrupted and a kind of limited antimagic field was created. Some rare parts of magic still work. Particularly, ancient magical items still hold their power. As do magical items brought from the outside. But, finding ways to harness the now scattered threads of magic in the south is now beyond the power of most magic users. Some spend their entire lives trying with countless failures, but sometimes the elemental threads may be manipulated enough to create something.

## Gardyn

Gardyn is the northern region of Dusk. It's a lush gardenscape of rivers and lakes. There are many well maintained trade roads that connect seven regions that are ruled by an elite society of vampires called The Hovoruus.