Aarde

## **Phase World, The idea**

Phase World is a planet properly called Aarde - specifically, it is the third planet in the Solar System - orbiting a star called **SOL INVICTUS.** This star system is in the Corkscrew Galaxy of the Three Galaxies, one of millions of inhabited worlds, the youngest known galaxy in the universe. Stars and planets in the Corkscrew Galaxy more metallurgically dense and diverse than currently understood Population I stars, which leads to a greater number of naturally occurring stable heavy elements, including Mythrill, Adamantine, & Toven.

Phase World formed from an accretion disc revolving around the young Sol Invictus, with complex organic compounds necessary for life having formed in the protoplanetary disk of cosmic dust grains surrounding it before the formation of the Phase World itself. There is a great crystalline lattice of the metal Toven in the composition of the core of Phase World. So, much like Earth's iron core creates a protective magnetic fields, Phase World also has a naturally occurring magical field. Phase World Aarde, nor the Three Galaxies, are what most people would consider normal. Phase World is a place where magic, technology, and super powers coexist and create volatile mixtures, where ultra-powerful Cosmo-Knights soar unaided through space, and where ultratech spaceships exchange broadsides with enchanted vessels.

There are two major elements in this universe influencing every planet whose natives have managed to break free from the bonds of gravity and space-time. The first is the Cosmic Forge, a mythical artifact believed to be responsible for the coming of magic and super-powers. The other is Phase World itself, the commercial and technological center of the universe, the terminus of all known spacelanes - and a world where transdimensional gates reach to hundreds of other universes.

The Planet Phase World is a transdimensional nexus point rivaled only by Rifts Earth. Dimensional travelers from all points in the Megaverse, from Splugorth agents to mages from the Forgotten Realms to the denizens of Wormwood and even stranger places all come together on this strange planet where normal space and time is an illusion.

Everything comes together in Center, a mountain-like city holding 600 million people! People representing thousands of races and incredible origins. Center is the largest spaceport and dimensional terminal of the Three Galaxies, a mile-high arcology where the worst slums of the Megaverse coexist with unimaginable wealth. The native race of Phase World, the mysterious Prometheans, are the masters of phase technology - a science allowing incredible feats such as teleportation, faster-than-light travel, and powerful force fields. Effectively here all Science is Magic. All Magic is Science. Science and Magic are interchangeable. Most people of any means travel by way of the Interstices, large, fixed portals where the intervening space between places and the interval of time elapsed to cross said space are simultaneously reduced to nearly zero.

## Phase World, The Planet Aarde

Phase World is a planet in the Three Galaxies, one of millions of inhabited worlds. Neither the planet nor the Three Galaxies are what most people would consider normal. Phase World is a place where magic, technology and super powers coexist and create volatile mixtures. Where ultra-powerful Cosmo-Knights soar unaided through space, and where ultratech spaceships exchange broadsides with enchanted vessels.

There are two major elements in this universe influencing every planet whose natives have managed to break free from the bonds of gravity and space-time. The first is the Cosmic Forge, a mythical artifact that is believed to be responsible for the coming of magic and super-powers. The other is Phase World itself, the commercial and technological center of the universe, the terminus of all known spacelanes - and a world where transdimensional gates reach to hundreds of other universes.

The Planet Phase World is a transdimensional nexus point rivaled only by Rifts Earth. Dimensional travelers from all points in the Megaverse, from Splugorth agents to mages from the Forgotten Realms to the denizens of Wormwood and even stranger places. They all come together in this strange planet where normal space and time is an illusion.

Everything comes together in Center, a mountain-like city holding 600 million people! People that represent thousands of races and incredible origins. Center is the largest spaceport and dimensional terminal of the Three Galaxie, a mile-high arcology where the worst slums of the Megaverse coexist with unimaginable wealth. The native race of Phase World, the mysterious Prometheans, are the masters of phase technology - a science allowing incredible feats such as teleportation, faster-than-light travel, and powerful force fields.

## **Points of Light**

Most of **Phase World Aarde** is wilderness; a cosmic waypoint dotted by a variety of intelligent species, strange monsters from other planes, ruins of ancient empires, and so on. The Phase Worlders live in isolated pockets scattered across a big, dangerous world and look upon the unkempt lands with dread. Not simply carved up between nation-states jealously enforcing their borders, with modern hover and flying vehicles, City-States don't even have roads linking to neighbors. It might be safe enough within an hour's travel from town, but go beyond and anything could be waiting down that old overgrown path… and whatever is out there is most likely hungry and hostile: infested marches, haunted barrowfields, desolate hills, and monster-haunted badlands. Striking off into untraveled lands is something only Adventurers do.

All of this being said, most people of any means travel by way of the Interstices, large, fixed portals where the intervening space between places and the interval of time elapsed to cross said space are simultaneously reduced to nearly zero.