a brand of magical bags called “Bag of Skeevy Tricks” that gives you assorted skeevy items to use in case you get caught in a Situation(tm) . the bag appears empty when you look inside but it really leads to another dimension. a weird webway sort of dimension, a bunch of tunnels through some magical aether populated by wee little rat gremlins

these gremlins are the ones that give you whatever weird item you need in times of trouble. their webway home is full of all kinds of knick knacks scattered all over the place. when something of yours goes missing randomly, its because it fell into the Skeevy Gremlin Dimension and will probably be reused sometime in the future by someone in some sorta trouble

a massive cityship of brilliant gold ferrying the remnants of an angelic race finds the blue marble called Earth. overcome with hope, they enter orbit and breathe a collective sigh of relief. finally, they have found a home. they eject the broken and rapidly decaying core of their vessel into space and it detonates in the aching void between earth and ship, rending space in twain. in its stead: an anomaly that brings about the beginning of an age of magic

the lone pilot of their cityship, ancient beyond all the rest, acts as their emissary and makes tentative first contact with both human and tecquel. there is happiness. bathed in the reality warping waves of the anomaly, some people learn how to warp the physical world even more, and become what we know as magic users

over time, though, the anomaly is discovered to affect humans as well, and a devastating genetic corruption is discovered which ends in death in those afflicted. distraught, the tecquel use their own magic to find a cure, and the first object heads are born

then follows war. spurned by this genetic anomaly, those afflicted, and those already harbouring mistrust in their hearts, fight against their angelic brethren. for what could this be if not a means to destroy humanity? far from it, no one saw this coming, but the afflicted fight anyway, and though quickly shut down, feel betrayed

many, many decades later, the war now a near and yet distant past, the present sees tentative peace once more. angel, human, and tecquel live together, though bias remains. old scars and painful memories from those old enough to remember first hand. object heads viewed with distrust, for the genetic corruption has not ceased. angels seen through eyes of sadness, for some still blame them. tecquel seen as strange monsters by some, for their kind, though old, has its own skeletons to hide

referring to bones as “body twigs”

asking for a hug: “saith is being to have of the humanskind body holds yes??”

engaging in wailing communal singing when excited

saith talking happily amongst themselves sounds like a room full of squeaky toys all going at once

thrumming softly like an engine when content

surprised saith toot like weird little trains

The temples dotting the land of Tanr are both holy sites and a form of energy conductor. The ancient machinery keeps the internal 'prismatic flame' contained and lit, and forms a point where controlled magical energy weaves out through the land to other temples, creating a web of magical leylines that crisscross Tanr. As though bidden by a living being, the flames in these temples pulse in an organic fashion: a heartbeat. Each pulse saturates the land, the air, and the atmosphere, before dispersing at a certain radius. Excess energy channels into a leyline and travels across the land, eventually hitting an incoming pulse from another temple and creating an interference pulse.

An interference pulse is something like a chiming ripple that leeks into the surrounding land. Unlike temple pulses, these have similar yet different properties. An interference pulse creates a phenomena known as “meadow ring”, wherein surrounding flora sprout at the fading edge and the land itself depresses, forming a shallow ditch. Meadow rings are one of the only places where the rare mockingsun flower has been found, mixed in with the local plantlife, leading one to believe the plant itself is created from the residual energy of the interference pulse. Like draecite, mockingsun glows inwardly to a gentle beat, but unlike draecite, this beat is slightly offkey, bound seemingly to the interference pulse rather than the temple pulse.

Magic itself is Light, Life, and Change. Physically it is both an invisible force that warps reality slightly, as well as a perceivable plasma, similar to fire. It is almost blindingly bright in physical form and flickers through all possible colours, hence its name, 'prismatic flame'. It encourages the growth of life and can change animals and even people in tiny ways. Strange creatures are not uncommon. Inside the temple machines that keep the flames controlled, the raw magic has a tendency to condense into a liquid state and coat the ancient machinery in liquid drops of sparkling prismatic light. This is held in a reservoir array before it evaporates. Liquid light is possibly the most powerful state of being for this energy, capable of warping both organic and inorganic to frightening degrees if a poor soul is caught in a reservoir overflow.

Some individuals are keen the art of musicmancy. Magic itself has its own tempo, its own beat, and can be manipulated by mortal minds with enough practice. Magic spells are written in the form of songs, some complex, others simple, and fall into the user's proficiency with voice or instrument to master this craft of subtle manipulation. A skilled musicmancer can sing life into lifeless objects and create servitors, for example. Or softly whisper fire into being, water from the ground, broken into unbroken.

but one day the flames sputter out, and the pulse dies down, and without the beat to go to, people are scared. they are off key. their singing feels wrong and hollow. machines die down and fear leads to panic and segregation

it might as well be the end of the world

the beings that came to earth in the meteor shower are known collectively as The Infestation. they feed on sentience and crave physical forms. they are eldritch horrors of the stars, half physical and half ethereal. they flicker in and out of existence. they are hungry, always hungry. hungry for something they cant really understand

they ride spaceborne debris between stars, silent and searching. they’re not... evil, really. they’re just another species doing what it does. they just feed on something no one would normally view as a foodsource

the ones that crave physical form search out sentient, intelligent things and infest them, taking root deep in their bodies in places that we’re not yet aware of. they dont control. control is not their aim. they just want to exist and feed. maybe they are like symbiotes? or more like parasites. im not really sure which. this is where vampires and werewolves come from. different forms/strains of The Infestation

there are others. vicious ones. secretive ones. quiet ones. infestation forms that hide in whispers, old moonlight, and memories. forms that are comprised of nothing but tentacles writhing in silence. others that are sleek and fast and hunt the emotion of happiness, only to feed exclusively on the abject fear that comes shortly afterwards