Universe lore

The world of Svemir

Light and Murk. Seven peoples and the heroes who shape the world. The 8 runes followed by the first Hero of Light. The full canon of the Sineus universe lives here.

✦World

Svemir — a world after the catastrophe

A grim world that survived the fall of two civilizations: the magitech veshi and the late-Renaissance age of humankind. The current era is the Time of the Surplus — the Years of Ash.

The world is splintered into isolated fortress-halls around the Beacons. The Murk has swallowed almost everything between them. Contact between the lands has been lost for more than fifty years; knowledge and craft are slipping away.

Light here is not a law of nature. People hold it — through their choice, their memory, their ability to keep their word. One breaks — and the Murk takes a step closer.

✦Powers & terms

Light, Murk and Anho

Five pillars of the world without which no hero makes sense.

Anho

The inner strength of a person, born of pain, trial and choice. A pure thread in children; a tangled knot of crystals in adults. Awakens through the Breaking — a peak emotional ordeal.

Murk

A hostile living substance born of burned or betrayed Anho. It is sentient, gains will, and seeks to bend all life. It does not kill directly — it divides, breaks trust, weakens resolve.

Beacon

The crystallized Anho of a great hero — a point of pure Light. It carves out a radius of safety and pushes back the Murk. A Beacon rises where a hero falls; fortress-halls are built around it.

The Surplus

Beings made of deliberately severed pieces of Anho. The embodiment of human pain, grief and grievance — homunculi of human parts and organics, sheathed in black Murk crystals, forever hungry for Anho.

The Carvers

Masters of Anho who cut, move, and shape it into heroes and artifacts. Their craft built the magic of humankind — and the same craft made the Murk stronger.

✦The core paradox of the world: the more people use Anho, the stronger the Murk grows. To defeat the enemy is to feed it.
✦Timeline

Six eras of Svemir

From the rise of the veshi civilization to the present Years of Ash.

  1. 01
    Years of the Cradle
    before −1500

    Peak of the veshi civilization. Human farms. Birth of the Murk.

  2. 02
    Years of Frontiers
    −1500 — 0

    Humankind unites. Sineus rises. The Great Battle and the victory over the Murk.

  3. 03
    Years of Deeds
    0 — 400

    Reconstruction, trade, the towers of Rubezhye, a flowering of crafts.

  4. 04
    Years of Dynasties
    400 — 800

    Kingdoms grow, everyday magic takes hold, the great houses marry into power.

  5. 05
    Years of Temptation
    800 — 1300

    A race for perfection. Dynasties cross over to the Murk.

  6. 06
    Years of Ash
    1300 — today

    The present. Collapse, isolation, fortress-halls clinging to the Beacons.

✦Seven peoples

Lands and peoples of Svemir

Each people is its own visual and cultural layer. All of them hold on to their light — and all of them pay a price for it.

Rubezhye

Reference
Old Rus' principalities (Novgorod / Kievan Rus)
Trait
Fortress-halls around the Beacons. Cradle of fate and home of the first Iskon dynasty.
Now
Isolated holdfasts with no contact for over 50 years. Knowledge and craft are bleeding away.

Morn

Reference
Vikings + 'Waterworld'
Trait
A fleet upon a cursed ocean. Each city is a giant drakkar; sails-Beacons are filled with Anho.
Now
Islands and coasts are drowned. The goal — to cleanse the ocean of the Murk.

Esh-Naar

Reference
Dune + Eastern folktales + nomads
Trait
Light and Dark are swapped: the sun kills, the shadow gives life. Nomadic cities ride the giant Naar.
Now
Endless wandering in search of water. People's shadows are alive and protect their owners.

Ilvor

Reference
Elves + 'The Secret of Kells' + the Scoia'tael
Trait
Life in the crowns of the giant Llus trees. Alliance with the Ilva birds against a Murk-swallowed earth.
Now
The Ilv keeps shrinking. Existence suspended between sky and ground.

Dainy

Reference
Shamans + necromancers + horror
Trait
The dead do not leave. Dark equals forgotten souls; Light equals memory. Hearth and chronicle keep the light.
Now
A fight against undead loved ones under the curse of Morvana.

Niyer

Reference
Vampires + the Wildlings of 'Game of Thrones'
Trait
The only people who live in the Dark without madness. The price — blood, fear of the sun, a pact with the Damned.
Now
Underground cities, blood offerings to the Murk, a thirst for revenge on Rubezhye.

Soteria

Reference
Byzantium + El Dorado + Koschei the Deathless
Trait
A utopia in a sky-city under an artificial dome of day and night. For its people the Murk is only a frightening tale.
Now
The city drifts in the sky. On the ground below — only a crater.
✦Heroes

The five who shape the world

Five names without whom the Sineus universe does not hold together. Every other thread is pulled from them.

Sineus

'Ember', the First Hero of Light, prince of Rubezhye

A quiet Iskon child who, on the Night of the Anho Blade, was the first to wield Anho with no carving at all. After that night half his hair turned the colour of cold blue flame. He united the armies of every people and threw the Murk back beyond the Black Mountains — at the cost of his own life.

Helma

Drakkar captain, wife of Sineus

Granddaughter of Chernomorn, the king who united the Morn. She met Sineus on his great journey. After his sacrifice she went into voluntary exile after Kot Bayun — an act of loyalty that ran far beyond politics.

Sirshe the Sweet-Voiced

Sister of Sineus, leader of the Murk

Tender and loving, she spent years among the 'madmen of Nav', listening to the whisper of the Murk. She heard the pain of the severed pieces of Anho and chose them — not from weakness but from empathy. Her body lies in a crystal sarcophagus among the Niyer; from her blood they made their 'vampiric' elixir.

Kot Bayun

Teacher, veshi defector

A Bayun — a veshi who shapes will in humans. He uncovered the veshi conspiracy against humankind, betrayed his own and joined Rubezhye. He raised Sineus and Sirshe through stories and trials; it was he who brought Olek Vorona to Sineus.

Olek Vorona

The first human carver

A 13-year-old orphan whom Kot Bayun raised in the art of carving — the first human to master it without veshi help. He carved 'precisely, as if he himself were the blade.' Sineus's confidant and moral compass; together they forged the first generation of 12 Iskon heroes.

✦Principles

The 8 runes of Sineus

The principles the first Hero of Light lived by. The tone and the philosophy of the whole Sineus universe.

01

Mastery

Power bowed to will
«I can become a storm — and still I choose silence.»
02

Just Oath

Honesty without bargaining
«I keep my word even when it costs me.»
03

Burden of Duty

Responsibility as weight
«I do not complain and I do not pose — I carry.»
04

Craft of Resolve

Competence inside fear
«I know the steps and I take them.»
05

Scarred Vow

Vulnerability as a mark of the path
«I remember the price — and so I never play with power.»
06

Silent Mercy

Kindness without display
«I helped — and walked on.»
07

Still Before Storm

Composure and timing
«I do not fuss. I see the structure.»
08

Craft Mercy

Compassion that preserves order
«I can punish — and I choose the way that keeps the person whole.»
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