Known Phenomena

The world of Prymec, as a whole, is almost completely defined by the rampant, and diverse types of phenomena that persist upon it. The fact that such insane effects occur on Prymec on a regular basis would be almost arguable that these effects are, in fact, not phenomena at all, but just the normal status quo of reality on the world were it not that many signs point to the fact that most of them are not naturally occurring and that something is extremely wrong with the world at its very core. It is speculated that the planet is affected by some sort of powerful curse, or perhaps multiple smaller ones, which explain its hostility towards living beings, but proof of that has yet to be discovered and who or what would’ve done such a thing is still a subject of superstition and faith. Prymec is beset by hundreds of unexplainable mysteries, with new curiosities and concerns being discovered every few years as humanity explores the realm and expands its knowledge of science, some of these phenomena being as simple and small scale as water draining in the wrong direction compared to the rest of the hemisphere within a small area of effect, to more large scale ones like the ever present threat of Mana Fog. Humans, being ever adaptable, have begrudgingly managed to eek out the formation of a few civilizations upon the surface of this enigmatic world, and below is a list of some of the most famous phenomena known thus far in the short eight centuries of humanity’s history on Prymec. Phenomena on Prymec are given the title “Rara Avis”, and are arranged in a hierarchy of classifications from 0 to 8, with zero being a negligible, harmless and incredibly localized event, to a class 8 being the most dangerous, threatening and wide spread ones. Investigating new phenomena and assigning its threat level is a duty belonging to a borderless organization known as the Order of Xianteche, which puts the lure of politics aside for the greater good of humanity’s survival in the treacherous environs Prymec offers.

The Core Siphon

A cosmically expansive crater on the surface of Prymec that spans over four hundred miles in diameter with an incredibly unique shape, the Core Siphon is Prymec’s biggest mystery and most intimidating feature. The walls of the crater are etched with grooves that curve inward and downward like the swirls of a giant, earthen whirlpool, until they disappear into the thick blanket of mana fog which obscures the basin from the outside. From the geographical center of the Core Siphon crater resides a gnarled, misshapen tower of gigantic crystals, arranged in a haphazard fashion, but definitely concocted by a sapient mind. These crystals resonate with sound and electricity, filling the air around them with both, and are able to keep the interest of any observer on the outskirts of the crater as the tower easily reaches Prymec’s stratosphere.

As if this wasn’t ominous enough, the Core Siphon remains in a perpetual cycle of building up an immense amount of energy, all of the massive crystals along the tower in the center slowly glowing brighter over time, and permeating the air with more and more of that built up energy, sometimes enough to vaporize a person caught in the energy field. This build up continues without end, until the crystals of the spire reach a critical mass and the entire charge of collected energy is suddenly dispersed straight up into the atmosphere of Prymec and the cosmos beyond like a massive energy cannon. Where this energy goes is unknown to anyone on Prymec, or what the purpose is for. Theories abound on where the energy the Siphon collects comes from, but nothing has been verified, leaving the Core Siphon to be an ever present mystery for the time being. Once a discharge has completed, the cycle begins anew, as the Core Siphon simply begins amassing more energy to reach its next ‘eruption’. The cycles of the Siphon are not consistent, as the time between discharges and the time it takes to charge up vary by entirely unknown factors, ranging from the current observed record of there being two discharges in a single day, to there being a lull of over three weeks between a set. Each nation and city state on Prymec has a scientific team dedicated to pursuing answers of this dominant feature of Prymec’s landscape.

Mana Fog

The most pervasive and prevalent phenomena on Prymec, Mana Fog is a form of thick, lavender or violet colored, energy charged mist which is in constant motion across the surface of the world. Comparable to radiation in a manner of speaking, Mana Fog has the ability to cause mutations in living beings, plant or animal, after repeated or prolonged exposure. Creatures of the animal kingdom are affected by mutating them into new, often horrific deviations of themselves, and these mutations have a high chance of turning even otherwise docile companions into aggressive beasts. Humans who have been affected in this way become new, unique subspecies of human with quite a wide variety of possible traits to encounter among them, known as Majicanth. While not the sole source or cause of the Majicanth, Mana Fog is by far the most common, and is incredibly dangerous to some of the population as it can cause its own wide variety of maladies to Descendant Majicanth, the direct descendants of Origin Majicanth, within a few moments of exposure (this list is detailed in the Majicanth page). Due to the risks involved with exposure to Mana Fog, and its widespread presence and migratory nature, most of human society on Prymec revolves around the persistent threat Mana Fog presents. Laws and behaviors are present among humans all across Prymec to reduce the threat of Mana Fog as much as their technology and understanding can manage, and great lengths are made to make settlements as safe as possible and limit the chances of exposure to the citizens, while there are many dedicated science teams that are attempting to learn its secrets or at the very least, mitigate the impact it has on living creatures.

Harinou’s Web

An eerie location near the northernmost coast of the first known continent of Prymec composed of a series of interconnected ravines and crags with clearings in the basin that have bell shaped overhangs and are filled with ethereal strands of a phenomena which somewhat resembles ghostly spider webs. Barely visible to the naked eye, these strands only resemble webs in appearance, as they have no physical substance and act more like reflections of sunbeams seen through a foggy mirror. In the areas where these strands exist, actual light can be refracted, resulting in difficult traversing of the area since these basins can basically become a sort of hall of mirrors with no physical walls or obstacles. While fascinating to look upon, this area is considered one of the most dangerous phenomena known to exist on Prymec since should one of these ghostly strands pass through a person’s body via the individual traveling through its occupied space without avoiding it, it spells instant death. Simple contact with these refractions of light is not fatal, but if a person swipes any part of their body through one fully, it is as if their soul is extracted from their body in the snap of a finger.

The region received its name from a researcher named Tanner Harinou whose investigation team was decimated in this fashion during an expedition to learn about this phenomenon following reports of numerous unexplained disappearances of hunters and other self styled explorers from the nearest settlements. It was discovered by Harinou’s team, who began with thirty-four and ended with two survivors, that whenever a strand here reaped a soul (human or animal), a new strand formed, causing this deadly phenomenon to spread. It was theorized by one of the traumatized survivors that with the nature of this effect, Harinou’s Web would eventually spread to engulf the entire planet of Prymec, potentially causing a global extinction unless someone could discover a means to contain the phenomenon, stop the spread of it or even remove it. Despite this warning, no nation or city state has committed resources into such a counter procedure.

Horrorhaven

Known as the “Undercroft of the World”, Horrorhaven is a labyrinthine series of catacombs that permeate a vast majority of Prymec’s surface, and even believed to reach under the oceans, perhaps leading to many of the pathways being submerged. The full extent of these tunnels and caverns is entirely unknown as there is just too much to explore and too few individuals that wish to delve into their depths to map them. Mostly because of the danger involved, though a few intrepid types may dare to test their mettle as Horrorhaven is littered with all sorts of curious debris hailing from whatever culture predated humanity’s arrival. Mana fog is prevalent within the confines of the catacombs, moving around like blood within veins, and the very nature of the world’s curse is manifested here by all kinds of unnatural monsters created from mutated beasts of the animal kingdom. There have been numerous entrances to Horrorhaven from the Core Siphon discovered, and theorists postulate a strong connection between the two. There is just no concrete evidence to support it yet.

What is known, is that Horrorhaven lives up to its moniker, as a sanctuary for all the creatures of the world, sapient and not, which have been mutated beyond measure by repeated and prolonged exposure to Mana Fog. Often, the denizens of the labyrinth are so malformed they no longer resemble the creature they once were originally, and this includes more than just their appearance. Behavior is also impacted, and for whatever reason unknown, the abominations of the passages are far more aggressive while still encompassed by the twisting, sometimes constricting tunnels than if they make their way out into open air on the surface. While Mana Fog is an ever present danger anywhere on Prymec one may travel, is is these creatures that truly make the tunnels of Horrorhaven a thing of nightmares, since each and every entity within exhibit different mutations than the next and therefore are unique threats with their own unique set of capabilities and behavioral patterns, making spelunking the catacombs anything but routine for even the most hardy, or inventive adventurer. Those who do brave these challenges, however, are often considered mad by the majority of society, but most who do this, do so for the promise of a more informed, safer civilization on Prymec’s surface.

Perrigen’s Expanse

One of the most awe-inspiring landscapes of the known regions of Prymec is the hundreds of miles wide Perrigen’s Expanse, and is one of the most baffling to boot. Far from as dangerous as the Core Siphon or Harrinou’s Web, this massive tract of land is made up of unexplainably flat stone, which is as smooth as stones that were cut and polished to a finish by masons, almost as if some celestial creator outright sliced off an entire mountain range at its base. While there is some variation in the types of stone within the region, giving it a sort of ‘complexion’ seen from above or vantage points in the nearby Sarrang Mountains, the entire expanse is made of solid stone and has no loose soil or bodies of water within it. Instead, Perrigen’s Expanse is decorated with large, circular pits of as of yet unknown depths which are spaced apart in mathematical precision with equal distance between each, giving it similarities to a topographical pegboard. To make it even more confusion is the utter lack of gravity in and above these pits, creating the opportunity to make use of a unique method of travel for the residents of the world made possible only here. The depth of the pits, however, has not been determined though, due to some manner of invisible force which prevents moving beyond a range of a couple hundred feet, which is uniform across all the pits tested, yet they are deep enough to be dark beyond the reach of light past a certain point.

The gravity distortions in this area have an impact on clouds and precipitation which forms there. Wind may move clouds into the area, but once these clouds pass over a pit present on the ground, the clouds will deform due to that lack of gravity and create unique patterns titled ‘Perri Clouds’ where the composition of the cloud is affected only by wind and air pressure surrounding the pit below, which creates stringy, sweeping spikes in the cloud’s appearance. When moisture in the area is enough to cause rain, this effect is altered even further and frequently results in eye catching ‘blankets’ of water which loom overhead, since raindrops that form above a pit can’t fall to the planet’s surface and thus linger in the sky at least until the water reaches the boundary of the gravity distortion so it can fall as normal. This in turn effectively creates interesting waterfall effects on the edges of these anomalous pits which can reach multiple miles in height.

Prophet’s Current

This phenomena of Prymec consists of a migratory current of water teeming with a microorganism unrelated to bacteria, viruses or prions, which have only recently in Prymec’s history been discovered by science, given the name “Gensia”. The Gensia affects the water it is present in by giving it a psychedelic appearance, which refracts light as if it had a thin layer of an oil slick present on the surface, creating rainbow swirls and a gleam in sunlight. Despite being incredibly tiny, the Gensia moves together in a single colony, traveling across the world wherever the mass wishes. Slow moving, but constantly on the move, this only known colony of Gensia affects a region varying between fifty to eighty square miles at a time, and follows any water body it encounters, from open oceans, down to fresh water streams. When this mass of Gensia reaches an origin point of a water source like a river, it simply reverses course in order to stay on the move as if biologically compelled to do so. There is no pattern to this migration, and the Gensia appears unaffected by salt or fresh water that they travel through or the climate of the regions around the globe.

While it is as small as its counterparts, Gensia is not dangerous to be exposed to like viruses, prions and many bacteria, at least in the way one would expect in becoming ill. This however, does not mean that they do not impact beings that consume it. Drinking water where Gensia is present appears to affect animals and humanoids equally, but it is humans who are capable of comprehending the effects, at least to a degree. Gensia seems to affect how brains process stimuli, altering the perception of all sorts of things, ranging from altering how a scent smells to a creature or how their brain perceives sounds their ears hear or sensitivity of their hearing, to even the creature’s perception of the flow of time. What it is best known for, though, is the intense, almost lucid hallucinations it can cause in humans (and it is believed that these can occur to animals too, despite their inability to process this effect), which oddly enough seem to be prophetic in what the hallucinations depict, earning the phenomenon its name.

What truly puts this into the phenomena category is partially due to the random migratory nature and dedicated cohesion of the Gensia as it travels, but mostly because of the unexplainable factor that the visions caused by consumption of the Gensia has been proven to be legitimately predictive of future events. With a catch. Events prophesied by Gensia intoxication are deemed to be relatively contained and limited only to the region in where the Gensia was first consumed, and does not involve events elsewhere unless said event impacts that region in some way. The prophesied events apparently can also span centuries to occur, as evidenced by some written accounts of predictions from long ago that only recently occurred in history, while yet others have taken place within hours of ingestion. This can include wide spanning events, or even relatively mundane ones, which is why it has taken so long to discover the truth behind the predictive traits of the Gensia. How such microscopic organisms can impart such an ability is a hot topic of research in Prymec, with many nations trying various projects to attempt to harness the ability.

The Upside-Down Forest

What was at first believed to be just a large thicket of strange, leafless, wooden shrubs and other plant life, the Upside-Down Forest was eventually proved to be literal once humanity began settling in and around the area. Originally it was just a running joke to travelers, comparing the foliage of the region with roots, until the first settler that had cause to dig up one of the plants discovered a trunk, branches, and leaves all buried in the soil as if the tree had been rotated 180° vertically with the ground line as its axis. This discovery was kept hushed for approximately eight years, as authorities contained the initial spread of information and responded by condemning the area for settlers, claiming the plant life of the forest made the soil and streams toxic, resulting in heavily regulated traffic through the forest. This worked for a time, but the earthquake of Sanne-Baleire, the largest known tectonic event on Prymec since humanity’s arrival, dashed the hopes of keeping it under wraps. As a result of the earthquake, the path of the main travel road through the forest was broken by a massive upheaval of stone and earth, which revealed a large underground cavern and ecosystem beneath the forest, where the actual forest grew downward from the cavern ceiling. Investigations into this forest hidden in the dark have proven next to impossible, as every team sent in to survey and explore has never returned to report their findings, with no explanation as to why. Thus after a few years of attempts, the various nations and interested scholastic guilds have ultimately given up on finding an answer, and returned to keeping any known entrances to the dark expanse heavily guarded, both to dissuade any prospective curious minds and to potentially guard the world of the surface from a theoretical threat in the deep. However, the guild of Sengoku Gakusha of Rankotan has set up a permanent facility of study at the mouth of the main breach into the caverns below, tasking those on site with developing potential technological creations that could shed light on what lies beneath.

Fairy Flakes

Strange flecks of glowing, ethereal energy that rise from the ground into the sky like reverse snowflakes. These flakes all take the same color when an event occurs, and areas affected can be as small as a city block or as large as a small province. The flakes are harmless and pass through solid objects, people and plants like they are not there. How far they reach into the sky before they dissipate is currently unknown, though there are studies in the works to research these phenomena.

Leystorms

Pockets of turbulent, magically enhanced clouds which can form after large ruptures of mana into the cosmos from the Core Siphon. These storms can range from peaceful to severe, but are always dangerous for Majicanth of the descendant generations as they are always accompanied by mana fog.

The Thrum

The most overlooked, yet still very memorable phenomena on Prymec, the Thrum is a sporadic, recurring event usually separated by decades between occurrences, where a shockwave of energy ripples out across the entire world from unpredictable locations. The energy always carries a deep sound resonance that can disturb water, wildlife and people’s hearing and equilibrium. It is not very dangerous to the world at large, but it has been known to affect migrating species of animals and insects by altering their general migratory destinations (and sometimes causing small extinctions because of it), and can disorient someone enough during the usual three minutes of the sound waves reverberating in a single area that they can be in danger of various hazards of their environment. It has been noted in recent history that this sound wave even travels through the ground itself.

Greywash

Thus far on Prymec, this phenomenon has only occurred once in history, but it was significant enough to warrant as much documentation as possible for future generation in case it happened again. Approximately three hundred and ten years prior to the formation of the Magpie’s unit, the entire known world was cast into a strange pall that muted color for all living things. It was no eclipse, and Prymec’s violet colored sun still appeared as normal, but everything else on Prymec itself became void of anything other than shades of gray for nearly half a decade. The only exception was the entity known as the Crimson Husk and the unearthly branch of the unknown tree it has been repeatedly spotted dragging around throughout history. Speculation and theories abound, and humans being innately superstitious, many omens and prophecies were concocted to explain the event. However, a more recent discovery of a location called the Alter Sanctuary has created a new working theory which remains to be put to the test, yet holds far more promise of truth than simple fear induced doomspeaking.

Alter Sanctuary

Discovered on an island given the name “Jagged Crown” for the building sized basalt-like rocky spires with ominously sharp points which surround about seventy percent of its shoreline, the Alter Sanctuary is a secluded grove with a large, fresh water spring fed by a trio of waterfalls and overcrowded with many of Prymec’s rarest flora specimens. It is a Class 6 Rara Avis, however, making it dangerous for the unprepared to enter. The site earned its name for being the opposite of what one might expect from it, as instead of a peaceful, secluded place someone might use to relax it is rife with various, unpredictable sense damaging phenomenon that are locally contained within its borders that occur in phases. These unique phenomenon occur here with no perceived schedule to their rotation and currently include:

The loss of all sound within the grove. This is not only noticed by people, but animals as well. Sound that should originate from within the grove can’t be heard by anything inside or outside of the area, and sound originating from outside the grove can’t be heard by anything within it, even when the origin point and the individual whom should hear it are within arm’s reach.
Perception of direction and orientation becomes entirely randomized from moment to moment, causing intense confusion and the onset of vertigo for any creature within the grove. For a person subjected to this effect, up can become perceived as down one second, and then behind the next.
The entire grove can lose all gravity in the blink of an eye, and for sporadic periods of time. Some incidents only last for a couple seconds, but one observed event lasted for eight days.
Invisible to the eyes of anyone outside the grove when it occurs, individuals inside the area are completely shrouded in pitch darkness like a light switch was flipped. It is still unknown if this event merely blocks the mind from processing what the person’s eyes see and technically makes them temporarily blind, or if there is another form of phenomenon that actually removes light from the area while allowing those outside to still see inside, oblivious to the darkness experienced by those within.
While yet to be proven, an event within the grove where living creatures lose their sense of touch and effectively their ability to feel pain, has repeatedly occurred in tandem with the Fairy Flakes event elsewhere on Prymec. This belief that the grove is linked to the Fairy Flakes has led some researchers to theorize its link to others, especially the Greywash, thanks to the many self contained phenomenon in the Alter Sanctuary which affect a victim’s senses.