World Origin — The Shattering
Three thousand years before the story begins, the world of Vaeloria existed in harmony. The continent was governed by the Primordials — beings of immense spiritual energy who maintained the natural order. Then came the Shattering: an event whose true cause is one of the story's central mysteries, in which the Primordials tore each other apart in a war of ideology.
The Shattering did not destroy the world — it wounded the sky. Reality itself cracked, and from those cracks poured the Resonance: raw existential energy that began to leak into all living things. Within two generations, humans began to Awaken — their souls learning to vibrate at frequencies that granted them power. Those who Awakened became the new ruling class. Those who did not became the governed.
But the Shattering left something else behind: the Echoes — ghostly impressions of the Primordials, still drifting through the world, still fighting their ancient war at a frequency most humans cannot perceive. And the cracks in reality are slowly widening.
The Power System — Resonance Theory
Core Principle
Every living soul vibrates at a natural frequency. When that frequency is strong enough, it interacts with ambient Resonance in the environment to produce measurable, usable power. This is called one's Echo Signature. The louder and more stable the signature, the more powerful the individual.
Resonance manifests differently based on the individual's soul-type — some manifest fire, some gravity, some light, some time-distortion. No two Echoes are identical, but they are detectable by any sufficiently powerful Sensor-class awakened.
The Six Tiers
Tier 1 — Murmur: Just Awakened. Can produce small effects: hardened fists, minor elemental sparks, basic healing. Most soldiers and city guards.
Tier 2 — Resonant: Full combat capability. Can sustain Echo-empowered techniques. National military elite.
Tier 3 — Clamor: Awakened whose Echo affects the environment around them passively. Commanders of armies, guild masters.
Tier 4 — Chord: Rare. Their Echo can harmonize with or disrupt others. Walking weapons of war. Each nation has fewer than 20.
Tier 5 — Crescendo: Legendary. Their existence warps local Resonance. Nations build entire strategies around a single Crescendo.
Tier 6 — Silence: Theoretical. Believed impossible. What happens when a Resonance becomes so refined it transcends audibility entirely. The endgame tier.
The Protagonist's Exception — The Null
Kael Voss was born with no Echo Signature. He does not Awaken. He cannot be detected by Resonance-based sensors, magic arrays, or Tier-4 Sensing abilities. He is, to every system in the world, functionally invisible.
Ranking Hierarchy
Global Body: The Accord — a treaty organization formed after the last great war, theoretically neutral, practically corrupt
Continental Powers: Five major Kingdoms: Valos (military supremacy), Drehn (mercantile, information brokers), Serath (theocratic, Resonance-pure ideology), Ildenmoor (democratic republic, underground guilds), Ashcroft (fallen empire, now fractured territories)
Guilds: The Ironsong Guild (mercenary, nominally neutral, secretly politically active), The Archive (knowledge-brokers, black market for techniques), The Pale Chain (assassins, borderless)
Underground: The Unmade — a growing movement of non-Awakened humans who believe the Resonance system is rigged. They are correct.
Key Locations
Valos Prime: The imperial capital — a city of towers built on Resonance pylons, each humming with contained power. Beautiful, stratified, and deeply corrupt.
The Ashfields: The ruins of the Ashcroft Empire — now a lawless wasteland where Tier-4 and Tier-5 entities roam free. The best training ground in the world, and the most dangerous.
The Archive Vaults: An underground city beneath the Drehn merchant republic — contains every Resonance technique ever recorded, available for a price.
The Fracture Lines: Geographic zones where the Shattering's cracks are visible — locations where Resonance behaves unpredictably. Beautiful and lethal. Where the late-game threats emerge from.