Bastion Historical Overview

 

Having existed more than 10,000 years, “empires”and “ages” have risen, fallen, and risen again in Bastion. There's as much to learn about what happened within Bastion as there is to explore beyond...

This article only deals with a broad overview of what has happened within Bastion. Like everything in the Poisoned World setting, this overarching view is meant to function as a framework and canvas for other artists to paint upon and within. For a rough sketch of how things function today, see The Government of Bastion.

First Age

Populations were small and “technology” was high. As people began to see and understand that their beloved world beyond Bastion had just been consumed, wiser minds kept morale up by turning to the furnishing of the new home. Because they did not know how effective their Miasma Barrier would be, development of Bastion would take place in both the outside and the inside. This long-sighted view was providential when the first toxic rains started to pierce the Barrier approximately one hundred years After Entry (AE). Everything not covered in earth or stone burned with acidic results.

By then a great deal of stores had been developed inside of Bastion and exploration and expansion inside had begun in earnest. Much effort was put into improving the barriers which eventually succeeded, though some thought it may have been the decreasing of the rains (which eventually stopped).

The First Age was characterized by:

• A survival based cohesion
• Rapid (and rampant) magi-tech development and expansion
• Beginning development of Bastion’s meta/physical space

The First Age began to wane as the ability to deal with the pressures of literally changing worlds became more evident. Different races began to evidence different needs which led to scarcity of available resources and the political wrangling that comes along with such representations.

Second Age - Days of Wise Counsel

Councils sprang up quickly, the most notable being the Elysium Council. They managed, for a couple of thousands of years, to make sure that saner heads continued to prevail. Through agreement, they also controlled a great deal of the more… interesting… technology that was developed. Through that, a much more… interesting level of magic was found. With the increased ability to make their environs safe, the population of Bastion grew quickly.

Glyph Lore, which allowed effective shaping and capturing of magic, was finally mastered hundreds of years into the Second Age, creating Magi-Tech. Thus, the powerful Elysium counsel was becoming even more powerful and the other representing bodies became jealous (most notably they weren’t happy with the restrictions the Elysium Counsel continually imposed with various councils rubberstamping their approval!).

Eventually, with some celestial levels of help, advanced magi-tech fell into the hands of various unscrupulous parties.

The Second Age was characterized by:

• An even greater sense of cohesion
• A proliferation of MagiTech items
• Incredible wonders
• A Shadow over All

Third Age - The Elysium War and Dark Nights

The Wars began quietly, in the background, with factions being drawn in slowly, surely. Then a series of pitched battles began, “civil” at first, and then with more and more power being brought to bear. Soon, entire cities began to be completely obliterated.

This insane war was an attempt to depose the Elysium Counsel. In order to minimize damage, the Elysium Counsel called for a truce and during the Elysium Conclaves they launched a final pre-emptive coup which destroyed the greater magi-tech devices, the technology, and it’s makers which effectively removed the Makers from the physical scene.

The Dark Nights

The loss of the Makers, and the ability to maintain or repair a lot of the Magi-tech devices had a significant impact on the culture of Bastion causing shifts and vacuums in power, and a failing of entire social and life patterns. It took centuries to get things back online. Many permanent major magi-tech artifices continued to work effortlessly - such as the climate and physical structures of Bastion. Others failed in part or completely causing large scale changes to landscapes and systems, rendering some regions uninhabitable, or without heat and light. The Dark Nights lasted thousands of years; things quickly became barbaric in Bastion. Small rises above subsistence occurred, but without agricultural efforts backed by magi-tech, a complete breakdown of society occurred with most major races reverting to a tribe-like level.

Dawn

Eventually advances in recaptured technology and social reorganization allowed for towns and cities to rise and become the focal point of day to day life and extended social structures.

The first major magi-tech re-discovery was re-mastery of the Glyph transportation system. Glyphmasters figured out how to turn the entire system back on and approached various major governments. They instructed individuals of each strata in some of the basic usage of the glyph system, but eventually decided that there would be one major glyph point access per strata. Several smaller glyphs were made available but remained under control of the Glyphmasters.

With access to the glyphs reopened, understanding of various other systems was possible and technology began to stabilize at a higher functioning level. The various governments took advantage of the opportunity to re-align the social system of Bastion. Some governments were resourceful enough to spread their authority over entire strata, but most kept to towns or few cities. The Federacy was born.

The Third Age was characterized by:

• A moral descent into chaos
• An actual descent into chaos and misery
• A world which had fallen into chaos, misery, and confusion
• A dawning of hope

Fourth Age: Rise of the Federacy

People had spread over much of Bastion and the first job of the Bastion Federacy was to put them in contact with one another along with a healthy dose of polity. The Federacy had developed excellent guidelines of insuring that the various member states and cities were allowed to guide themselves except when it came to interaction beyond one’s boundaries; for that, complex rules of interaction eventually rose.

Thus a (relatively) benevolent representative bureaucracy was born which initially was an arbitration body but as the centuries rolled past and more and more rulings were made, they became the de facto uniting body of Bastion.

For more on the Federacy, see The Government of Bastion.