Arcadia is a medium to small crescent-shaped continent with archipeligoes in the middle. It's just over 1000 kilometers across (counting every land mass). It's a continent on the planet Gia, which has two moons.

Work in progress map for the site. Key needs to be done, swatches for different map layers, maybe interactive stuff on the map itself, and this 'drag and zoom' code is kind of a placeholder anyway.

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Arcadia is surrounded by a thick fog referred to as 'The Pale', and it has been for almost two millennia. Beyond the pale, not much is known. Most who go in never come back out and those who make it back aren't every truly the same. It's a fog that distorts everything it touches. Gravity behaves in unusual ways there, compasses point in random directions, magic is rendered useless, and after a while you won't know where up or down is anymore.

Life that clings on within The Pale has also changed beyond recognition, and the land masses and civilisations that were once there are now completely fragmented, broken into floating islands and drifting across The Pales seemingly endless expanse.

The world of Gia wasn't always like this. Maps of this old world exist in the library of Iyra, but they're heavily damaged and largely incomplete. Through memories passed down, and the fragments left from past civilisations, the people of Arcadia today have been able to put together some semblance of an idea about the world before The Pale.

It was a world much more advanced than what the state of Arcadia is today. They spoke of exploring the stars, and their writings seemed largely devoid of religious theory. This world of machines and great technological advancements was powered by Arcane magic. Not via the body, but through machinery and aether crystals.

"A force of creation, the end of worlds."

Is a heavily repeated quote from a passage of writing preserved from this period right before The Pale. It's unclear and highly contested what exactly the writer was referring to given the fragmentary nature of the piece, and the fact that it was written in a language long lost to time, but many believe it was in reference to Arcane magic. What is known with more certainty was that two (or perhaps three, also contested) of Gia's most powerful nations were at war in this period, and the weapons they used were powered by Arcane magic.

It is believed that it was the abuse of Arcane that eventually caused the magic of the world to collapse in on itself, breaking the very fabric of reality. Seemingly overnight, a thick white fog began to spread from the place most devastated by the Arcane weaponry, and in less than a year, it would engulf most of the planet; swallowing land masses, destroying civilisations and forcing populations to evacuate.

The Pale swallowed all but one land mass however, and that was Arcadia.

Back then Arcadia was a largely unremarkable land inhabited by mostly chimera, serpents, lindwurms and some migratory seraphs. The continent was once called, 'Imiseli', and was only then named 'Arcadia' (meaning essentially 'utopia') after the population of Gia settled there, fleeing The Pale.

The remaining scientists of Gians population monitored The Pale's growth very closely, but the fog remained unmoving. It's presence made Gians uneasy, as if it was sitting and waiting to strike again, but it never did. That was where The Pale would sit for years to come, centuries to come, and now still almost two millennia later it remains.

The population of Gia was technologically set back thousands of years, and regressed into a reactionary and fear mongering society. Arcadia was seen as a blessed and sacred place that repelled The Pale. Others saw it as the world of Gia giving them a second chance. Mostly a mix of the two, strong religious belief formed around these ideas. The rebuilding nations took advantage of these superstitious murmurings, and now almost two thousand years later, it is widely believed that it was the gods (the primordials) that punished the population of Gia for abusing its magic. The period before The Pale is often characterised as being morally repugnant and driven by an insatiable desire to control nature and abuse its power, which essentially lead to a general rejection of scientific thought. Of course science still exists, especially in fields like medicine, but the society of Arcadia largely works on a religious framework, and this suits nations like Anerc Katafygio just fine.

Gians stopped monitoring The Pale so closely. The numbers of those researching and attempting to explore it dropped significantly, and now it is almost never touched. Every year that passes, more knowledge is lost under the belief that The Pale will simply resolve itself if the people of Arcadia 'live purely' and do not 'tamper' with it, which means whatever the nobles of Arcadia want it to mean.

Arcane magic is forbidden all throughout Arcadia, especially through 'dark magic', and use of it is usually met with execution. Research on The Pale (specifically field work) is also largely banned.