The Glassblown Republic

The Republic's cities are made of glass. Spired, multicoloured, shaped by glass-mages whose patterns are passed down family lines. Every public building, every wall, every important object is glass. Some of it is solid; some of it is hollow and full of trapped air; some of it remembers being warm. Glass-mages can shape the material with their breath if they know the right pattern. The mountains in the distance are also glass. They were not always.

A pattern that bears their name. The dominant magical tradition — Pattern Magic — works through inherited and discovered patterns: geometric forms, sequences, ratios that produce specific effects when properly invoked. Patterns are personal property. Inheriting a pattern is inheriting wealth. Discovering a new pattern is the highest achievement available to a citizen of the Republic.

Aware but conflicted. The Paths are patterns in the deep sense, and the Pattern-mages have known about them for centuries. Some Paths are mapped on glass tablets in temples. But a faction of mages believes the Paths are corrupted patterns — flaws in the world's structure that should be sealed. A different faction believes they are proof of the Republic's pattern-theology, and should be celebrated. Solace operates here under a complex permit system that varies by region and is constantly being renegotiated.