16.2 Praxis

The world of Praxis is a limited one, fraught with danger in the wilderness beyond a small region of safety and civilization.

16.2.1 History

The Apocalypse

A thousand years ago, the world was destroyed in a great magical apocalypse. Civilization survived in only one place: Praxis, a city sheltered by a massive and mysterious shield-dome. The details of this event, and the nature of the world before the apocalypse, are lost to time. Most of the life in the world was also wiped out in the apocalypse. Of the species that survived, most were kept safe in Praxis and released into the wild after it ended. A rare few specimens of other species apparently also survived, but no living creature was alive before the apocalypse - even of species with lifespans that can stretch that far back, such as dragons.

The Long Reconstruction

In the aftermath of the world’s destruction, the inhabitants of Praxis decided to ban magic after the devastation it had caused. For about nine nundred years, this worked fairly well, and Praxis very slowly expanded and rebuilt its civilization. Most of the interior of the dome was devoted to farmland during that time. Praxis developed its own government and guilds, and the four major power sources in Praxis developed at this time: the city government, the Boundary Wardens, the Nullwardens, and the Landowners’ Association. The Boundary Wardens and Nullwardens made efforts to expand the influence of Praxis beyond the dome and into the untamed wilds beyond. However, their progress was slow and dangerous thanks to the monsters that had taken over the wilds beyond Praxis.

Periodically, Praxis encountered civil unrest or the threat of hidden magic users violating the city’s prohibition. The greatest punishment the city imposed on its worst members was exile. Many of those exiled from the city died in the inhospitable world beyond, but there are some groups outside Praxis that can trace their origins back hundreds of years before the Great Harrowing to groups of people exiled from Praxis. Most of these long-lived groups are druidic circles.

The Great Harrowing

Nine hundred and twenty years after the apocalypse, Praxis was attacked by a pair of massive red dragons. They flew in through the open gates, destroyed the city’s few static weapons that could pose them any threat, and began torching the city and all of its farmland. The city tried to defend itself, but without magical defenses they had little ability to stop the dragons. Although Nullwardens had found success slaying dragons before in more controlled circumstances, their near invulnerability to magic could only stop the dragons from killing them - not from destroying the rest of the city around them.

In Praxis’s darkest hour, it was finally saved by people who had been concealing their magical powers from Praxis’s ban: the Eldritch Knights and the Divine Chorus. The Eldritch Knights were an order of mage-knights whose founders had been exiled from Praxis centuries ago. When they discovered that Praxis was under attack, they had come to help defend it. They were joined by the clerics of the major churches in Praxis, who had been concealing their divine power. They did not immediately claim a specific name for their alliance, but in the years since the Great Harrowing they have become known as the Divine Chorus.

The Eldritch Knights and the Divine Chorus with the remaining defenders of the city to seal the gates of Praxis to trap the dragons inside. Then, in a fearsome magical battle, they defeated the dragons and saved the charred remains of the city.

The Era of Rebirth

In the aftermath of the Great Harrowing, much of the old power structure of the city was destabilized, and many of its previous power holders were dead. When the city started to function normally again, the first major act was to revoke the ban on magic in gratitude for the role that magic users had played in saving the city. The power offered by magic dramatically accelerated the rate of Praxis’s reconstruction and expansion. For the first time in centuries, Praxis was able to make significant progress against the monsters at its gates.

Eighty years have passed since the Great Harrowing, and in that time, Praxis has pushed most of its farmland outside of the city. The inside of the city is being developed and magically renovated, and living quarters are becoming far less crowded for most of the city’s inhabitants. The power of the Nullwardens has waned with the acceptance of magic, though they still argue strenuously against its dangers and use each magic-wielding criminal as evidence that magic should be more aggressively controlled - or banned once more. The Boundary Wardens are stretched thin patrolling the ever expanding territory, and they are eager to recruit anyone with the skills to help them keep the peace in the wilderness and ensure that the road networks are safe.

16.2.2 The City of Praxis

The city of Praxis occupies a nearly perfect circle with a ten mile radius, all of which is protected by an immense dome. The city sits atop a massive plateau with a thin rim around the outside. Roads zigzag up the side of the plateau to reach each of Praxis’s three gates.

The Shield-Dome

The shield-dome over Praxis is made of a mysterious metal alloy that is harder than any known substance. Though it is apparently mundane in nature, no known weapon or spell has ever been able to harm it. The gates to the city are massive doors that can swing open and closed, and were apparently part of the dome at the time of its construction. For many centuries, the entire dome has been magically invisible, allowing sunlight to enter the city. The gates have only closed once in that time - during the Great Harrowing, to trap the dragons inside the city.

Most people think that the dome is a magical forcefield, like an immense wall of force, instead of physical metal that is rendered invisible. Of the few who do know the dome’s true nature, even fewer know what sustains the invisibility effect. The power to sustain the dome’s invisibility comes from an ancient magical device deep in the Praxis Labyrinth.

The Praxis Labyrinth

The plateau that supports Praxis also contains an immense labyrinth. An ancient magic makes the labyrinth impossible to navigate by confusing both the minds of intruders and the physical space they walk through, creating twisted and impossible passages that layer over themselves. Many people have tried to explore it, but the labyrinth has never been navigated within recorded history. Only the most learned historical scholars know of reports centuries ago that an unknown woman walked out of the labyrinth without having entered it. She was never seen again.

16.2.3 Modern Geography

Praxis is the only major city. It sits at the intersection of the four major biomes: the Northern Forest, the Southern Forest, the Expanse, and the Storm Peaks. There are a number of farmsteads expanding from Praxis towards the Northern Forest and Southern Forest, and several towns of importance outside Praxis.

16.2.4 Major Organizations

Boundary Wardens

The Boundary Wardens are responsible for patrolling the wilderness around Praxis, maintaining the safety of the road networks, and generally keeping the boundary between civilization and nature intact. They have legal juridisction over all areas outside of the Praxis shield-dome.

City Guards

The city guards are responsible for maintaining peace and order within Praxis. They have legal juridisction over all areas within the Praxis shield-dome.

Landowners’ Association

The Landowners’ Association is a loose collection of rich merchants and real estate owners within Praxis. They have no formal responsibility or juridisction, but the wield great wealth to accomplish their objectives, which mostly revolve around acquiring greater wealth.

Nullwardens

The Nullwardens are a group of strictly mundane warriors who fight against the dangers of magic. All Nullwardens above the entry ranks are Null, making them virtually immune to magic. Centuries ago, the Nullwardens were indisputably the most important power brokers in Praxis, surpassing even the legal government. They were a mix of elite mercenaries and witch hunters, searching for magical dangers both within Praxis and beyond its walls. After their failure to protect Praxis during the Great Harrowing, their power has waned, though they are still deeply influential. Since magic is now legal, they spend less time hunting for mages in Praxis and more time advocating for political change.

Unlike the Boundary Wardens or the city guard, the Nullwardens do not primarly define their influence in terms of territory. The Nullwardens send surgical strike teams anywhere in the world to stop magical threats. To the extent necessary, they generally obey the authority of whoever claims legal jurisdiction over the territory they have to operate in, and any extra-legal operations they undertake are well hidden.