Planet Earth

World of land and sea

Earth is the largest of the four rocky planets nearest the Sun. Oceans cover roughly seventy-one per cent of its surface; continents, islands, mountain chains and river basins occupy the rest. The Moon influences the tides, and Earth’s orbit and tilted axis shape the seasons by which farmers, sailors and courts order their lives.

Across the inhabited lands, authority rests with rival crowns, city councils, confederations, clans, temples and great trading houses. Ports gather news from distant shores; mountain passes become battlegrounds; rivers carry grain, pilgrims and armed companies. Beyond these familiar routes lie lands with histories older than any surviving kingdom.

An ancient planet in an older cosmos

Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago, long after the first stars and some inhabited worlds. Life and its environments changed through vast ages. Mass extinctions remade its living populations, while visitors from beyond Earth and other realities left their own marks upon the world’s deep history.

Earth turns once relative to the Sun in about twenty-four hours, while its journey around the Sun lasts approximately 365¼ days. It is a world of natural laws, even where magic has changed places and peoples within it.

Earth and the Celestial Powers of 1454

From an aethership’s observation deck, the boundaries of earthly kingdoms vanish beneath the clouds. They matter again as soon as a pilot returns. Ming China maintains a guarded celestial fleet while the courts of Bohemia struggle to control Prague’s astronomers. Catfolk Kemet’s temple custodians know gates older than the kingdoms that now seek them. The Ninefold Dominion searches the occupied city of Constantinople for celestial devices; Richelieu’s agents obtain forbidden instruments for France; Majapahit merchant houses sponsor rival voyages from the island seas.

These expeditions are few beside the ships crossing Earth’s oceans. Dwarven craft, gnomish instruments, protected air, water and astronomical calculation can keep a crew alive, but none makes ownership of another world automatic. Other planets have their own conditions, older histories and sometimes inhabitants who have never acknowledged an earthly ruler. The Space Atlas connects the national ventures, and the Outer Space Terrain describes what can happen beyond the atmosphere.

Paths through the world

• Geography — continents, kingdoms, roads and the oceans between them.
• Timeline — creation, deep time and the changing ages of Earth.
• Bestiary — creatures, peoples and threats with territories on Earth.
• Planes of Existence — realities reached through magical crossings rather than orbital flight.
• The Moon and Solar System — Earth’s neighbours in the Material Plane.