#nerys-eter

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Ether

Ephemerae and enigma

Transmutation

The Void

Ecosystem

Basics of magic

Ether is what the souls are made of. Ether is a pure essence of Divine Insight. It's an esoteric matter that is able to contain enigma. In fact, all Nerys are formations of ether infused with many feelings and thoughts - the enigma of creation. Once upon a time, the Divine Spark imbued dead cold rocks with this mysterious substance, creating a world.

Nerys-eter is full of shattered souls that are called Ephemerae. They sometimes appear as tiny sparkling butterflies, as if made of glass or crystal. They carry small amounts of residual enigma–a metaphysical substance which gives this world a form. Some Nerys call it "value" or “significance” and even "hope". Matter, it's form, characteristics and overall existence is defined by Ephemerae.

Enigma can be affected, rearranged in a way so it becomes unstable and starts to emit energy trying to adopt a new stable equilibrium. Energy is a byproduct or a required component of a transmutation reaction. And transmutation is a process of matter's enigma being rearranged. Along with the enigma, the ethereal formation of the object also changes, corresponding to the new state so we see physical, observable changes: ice melts, metals become alloys, the wood is burning, alchemical reactions happen. Rearranging the enigma can be achieved with magic. Not only that, other manipulations such as heating, melting, dissolving, grinding, fermenting can have the same effect. That's what Nerys alchemy is based on. Similar techniques are used in imbuement, including also specific direct magical manipulations.

The Void – vast senseless nothingness. It defies meaning and when the meaning is lost - everything turns upside down, everything crumbles and fades into nothingness. It is infinite and immortal, and therefore opposite to life. It can’t comprehend a concept of meaning and you definitely can’t comprehend its existence. Ether is resilient to the Void, but still, nothing living is eternal.

Magic in the world exists as long as there’s ether and enigma in the environment. It forms some sort of magical balance, an ecosystem. Massive destructive magic can cause severe damage to the spiritual balance of the region making it unfit for habitation, causing mutations and decay, making it easy for the Void to consume a disharmonious ecosystem. The unique magical balance of the region shall restore with time if it wasn't critically damaged.

Changing some fundamentals and vocabulary, some parts will get totally overhauled

Things coming this summer: 1 - world icon 2 - world's deep lore and origin explained 3 - more region abstracts 4 - first bestiary entries 5 - updates on articles about metaphysics and magic 6 - long awaited article "Advanced magic" and more!

Sorry, this post lacks formating for now (as well as the toyhouse page) i'm a bit too lazy to do it now, sorry

Nerys-eter is full of shattered souls that are called pacifiers. They’re drops/tiny fragments of ether, carrying small amounts of residual enigma. You can imagine it as a morning dew on the grass that's everywhere: in the air, in the rocks, in liquids - and it's invisible to the naked eye. These dew-drops embed those objects as parts of the world, making it difficult for the Void to erase them from existence. Nerys can influence ether and enigma through willpower to change chosen objects, giving them supernatural properties. The balance will shift when confronted by a vigorous spirit who believes in themselves. Masters say that the balance does not apply to everyone equally, it seems like all souls, even pacifiers, are connected. They resemble a hivemind or a collective unconscious. This system seeks balance and tries to restore it by the least expenditure of resources.

Every Nerys is capable of doing magic since the awakening. It's called primordial magic - some kind of ability which Nerys is capable of without study and preparation. Primordial magic can also influence other spells that Nerys tries to cast, which quite often changes the outcome. The very being of Nerys is based around their own primordia. Long deep learning, concentration and self-control is required for Nerys whose magic doesn't align with their primordia. (eg. Nerys learning pyrokinesis when their primordia is phantasma). There are numerous popular types of primordial magic but they vary a lot even if they vaguely fit in the same type which creates an infinite number of different combinations and applications of something as simple as pyrokinesis.

Magic in the world is endless and connected to the environment. Massive destructive magic can cause severe damage to the spiritual balance of the region making it unfit for habitation, causing mutations and decay, making it easy for the Void to consume decomposing ether and enigma. The unique magical balance (which can be called ecosystem) of the region shall restore with time if it wasn't critically damaged.

Developing and refining the ability to use magic of the world in your favor requires inventiveness, profound understanding of what exactly you want to get from the spell and the philosophy of the magic school you're trying to use above your primordia. Those who master their magic can gather adepts and create a cult or a magic school and teach others how to use a specific type of magic. In civilized regions there are magic guilds who specialize in different magical arts, often such guilds become a serious source of political power as well as the source of resources. For easier knowledge exchange many guilds and schools use special cryptic language to describe spells. This language describes step by step what caster should do in order to get the spell working. It's time-consuming and requires a lot of training to learn and find workarounds to make the written spell a part of your arsenal. Scrolls, atlases, folios with ritual layouts, simple spells and detailed alchemical excerpts are extremely valuable for skilled warriors, ruin gliders, artificers, alchemists, inventors, etc.

This post explains a part of metaphysics of Nerys-eter world. The big article is yet to come, this piece will be a part of it. I doubt that I'm going to retcon it so I will leave it there.

"Ether grows into pretty crystals... like snowflakes. These snowflakes are... our souls." - Glaciny

Ether is what the souls are made of. Ether is a pure essence of creation. It's an esoterical matter that is able to contain enigma. In fact all Nerys are formations of ether infused with many concepts, ideas, memories, feelings, everything that defines the personality.

It's probably easy to assume that you need to create a perfect soul for the clearest ether to be able to contain pure enigma. But creating etherial constructs is very difficult, pacifiers amalgamated into living constructs become unstable. Summoned creatures are unconscious and not self-aware, they are just mere puppets who need constant recharge and repair, they decompose themselves because of conflicting concepts not being pure enough; they can't all fit into the impure vessel. Although, they can be used to do some rough labor or for combat purposes. This magical art is usually called amalgamation or summoning. It's widely considered an unethical magic and it's difficult to find much information about it.

Self-aware Nerys who awake in the world retain harmony within themselves if their etherial shape is not critically damaged by the Void.

This post explains a part of metaphysics of Nerys-eter world. The big article is yet to come, this piece will be a part of it. I doubt that I'm going to retcon it so I will leave it there.

Matter, it's form, characteristics and overall existance is defined by all souls, especially pacifiers. Despite their name, they are tiny vessels of what some Nerys call enigma, some refer to it as memories, some even use the word hope to call it. Enigma has indefinite amount of types and it's unclear how exactly it works, no one could extract pure enigma yet and contain it separately from any vessel which it can be infused into. (there's even a whole separate research in Nerys alchemy that tries to extract pure enigma and use it as philosopher's stone)

Some specific types of matter contain very lucky combinations and formations of enigma, so it's easy to transmute into energy. So, energy is a byproduct or a required component of a transmutation reaction. And transmutation is a process of matter's enigma being rearranged. Along with the enigma, the ethereal formation of the object also changes, corresponding to the new state so we see physical, observable changes: ice melts, metals become alloys, the wood is burning, alchemical reactions happen.

Toyhouse page.

Last update 21.10.2025

Nerys-eter (Can be interpreted as shadow/dark/obscured/faded ether) is a variation (or level) of the afterlife that provides a refuge for the ones who are discarded.

Bygone myths and lost souls, who were forgotten, are disposed from their original reality into the Void for eternal oblivion. But the ones who were lucky may find a new form of existence as spirits in this gloomy realm. 

Nerys-eter roughly resembles an enormous cave system with giant city-sized caverns and long networks of passages, holes, tunnels and shafts. Every big cavern is thousands years old and each has formed it's own natural spiritual balance.

Caverns become more perilous the deeper you descend into the unknown. A thick fog-like darkness distorts the world around, twists your mind, erases your soul. The darkness where even time and space bend. The Void rules there and it's a threat to anyone.

Nerys-eter is populated by spirit-like creatures called Nerys (which is a derivative from the world name). Although the population isn't limited to Nerys: There are such living beings such as pilgrims and different kinds of chaos creatures.

Every object in Nerys-eter is "possessed". The smallest souls (also known as blank spirits or pacifiers) give all objects some essence and meaning, slowing their decay in the Void. Defining the properties of everything they are contained in, they play a role of an all-equalizing collective unconscious that prevents the Void from distorting and corrupting everything.

Before Nerys awaken their previous life in a different world ends and soul gets discarded to the Void, which slowly distorts and mixes all the memories and personality until the soul ends up dissolved completely or until it drifts to the outskirts of Nerys-eter, where it becomes another pacifier, or a wild Nerys (With a possibility of being a sentient one, who can recall something that happened before they dip into the Void)

Both sentient Nerys and wild ones can manipulate pacifiers, giving some objects supernatural qualities. It's also called magic btw.

Sentient Nerys build cities, create outposts to defend against chaos creatures and wild Nerys, create trade routes, fight, study magic, create their own religions, look for artifacts that can make their life on the edge of eternal oblivion a little better. 

Nerys are not just unified species with similar traits, they are all unique and bizarre in their own way. They are forgotten ideas, discarded concepts, lost souls, faded memories who were given a chance to exist again.

Nerys-eter world and Nerys as species is a fictional project of mine that I have been developing for years. It's at a stage of being a Work-In-Progress closed world/species. It's both my comfort mindspace and a homeworld for many of my characters. There you will see lore heavy texts and maybe even art when my studies are easier to deal with.

@thatswickedxd me, who writes this post, a founder and the main writer of the setting

https://qloudpatch.carrd.co/ is my close friend, my voluntary editor and proofreader who makes sure my writings are good quality. They're composer and artist, check them out!

Toyhouse page of the project is the main source of information about the world and it always updates first.

Main purpose of this blog is to get some attention and critique so I can improve my writings and maybe even gather a community, who knows.