*The chapter is for general background information on the planet. May contain spoilers*
The disaster of 2054:
During 2054, a large meteor was on path to directly impact the planet Earth. Desperately, governmental superpowers tried to alter the pathway of the meteor or destroy it before impact. After using nearly the entire planet's nuclear arsenal, they managed to break the meteor apart into three major sections accompanied by many minor to tiny pieces. The major pieces ended up impacting two highly populated zones and a lowly populated zone. It was cataclysmic to the residents of the impact zones, immediately killing one-third of the entire human population. To be more precise, the three chunks impacted what was known as the state California, South Sudan, and Greenland near the Denmark Strait. That wasn't all the problems though. Small chunks of the meteor peppered all the continents and soon large meteor dust clouds began to travel across the planet. As the dust swept around the planet, the fine crystal particles would sometimes strangely interact with some humans causing them to glimmer, fade, and then vaporize. These people would be known as generation alpha. The first of the people to be sent to the trials. Where the trials are held is to this day a mystery. Nobody knows even what to categorize the location as, it could be a planet, galaxy, or even dimension. After defeating the trials, aspects are able to transport to a place known as Aether by coming into contact with a large chunk of meteoric crystal. Similarly, these crystal chunks are named Aetherite. Within the Aether, it is seemingly infinitely expansive. Currently, some of the territories are mapped and explored, but many remain untouched even after discovery.
A problem occurred while gen alpha was adventuring through the trials. All across the planet, spatial rifts began appearing and undefined terrors began to invade earth. There was some discovered unknown correlation with the rifts and the meteor because the density of rifts was higher near the large meteoric chunks. Reeling from the damages, the volume of rift openings in North America and Africa was too much to handle, there are very few known survivors or escapees. While infrequent, rifts opened in every country, town, or city whether or not it was impacted by anything. Even the low density of monster causing rifts was hard for any military to deal with. Modern weapons were nearly ineffective against these creatures. Luckily members of gen alpha began returning to Earth, fighting off the monsters and established the Human Existence Probability for Survival Metric also called the HEPS Metric. When things stabilized, sixty percent of the eleven billion had died.
Human Existence Probability for Survival:
This metric defined different zones of the planet from green, orange, red, and black.
The danger these zones possess to human survival are Green < Orange < Red < Black.
Green zones rarely have any rifts, some green zones have gone decades without one but every town within is still required one or two aspects to work as the town ethereal guard. Many have more living within, but not professionally hired to keep watch. All rift activity is relatively weak.
Orange zones have annual rift activity, each town has one or two companies (each company containing seven or more aspects).
Red are highly militaristic zones where human survival is non-existent outside of military bases. Most of the mercenaries and companies possessed by the factions and local government are stationed here.
Black zones are areas the military have tried to push into but only the most powerful aspects were able to survive and return alive.
Rift Strength:
The strength of a rift is determined by the amount of observable monster essence leaking from it.
The more monster essence can mean the presence of higher volumes, higher class, or even named monsters. Every rift of tier II or higher has at least one titled monster with "Warden" in the name.
Tier 0: A rare weak rift that one or two nymphal monsters come out of before disappearing, hard for scanners to detect and usually easily dealt with by autonomous defense systems or the local ethereal guard.
Tier 1: The most common, large amounts of nymphal monsters follow a larval monster. Autonomous defense systems are capable of handling these rifts except for the larval monster. A single competent combat aspect is capable of easily handling these.
Tier 2: Along with the warden at nymphal or larval stage, mindless drones with a solid mix of nymphal and larval are expected. It is difficult for a mature aspect to deal with alone. Usually it takes five or six skilled mature aspects to clear this. With a warden guiding the legion of monsters, the movements become much more strategic. Rarely spawn in green zones, but the most common in orange zones.
Tier 3: Expect a titled monster working with the warden, at least one being at the larval stage. There are plenty of larval drones accompanying them. Either a large force of matured need to contest this rift or squads usually need to be accompanied by an evolved aspect. Found in orange and red zones.
Tier 4: Often two or three named creatures along with the warden, people with evolved aspects have lost their lives. Usually a chrysalis monster or a few among the ranks. If not, a huge overwhelming larval swarm is expected. Found commonly in red zones.
Tier 5: These rifts are rare except for black zones, not much is known except the drones can be of chrysalis class. Has been observed to have two wardens.
Tier 6+: Only one tier 6 rift was discovered. This was in Iceland, the entire island was lost to it. It had a ravenous warden.
Aetherite:
Aetherite enhances the connection one has with their aspect. If one concentrates while holding Aetherite, their brain will formulate a way to display their aspect information in a way they can clearly understand it.
Aspect Names:
Aspect names dictate the type and way they specialize.
Aspect names involving weapons or aggressive actions get mostly combat oriented abilities.
Names that don't fall into the above category are utility ones.
Aspect Abilities:
Combat abilities can be categorized into offense, defense, mobility and buffs.
Production abilities are usually more precise in nature and hard to categorize. For example, a production aspect may have an ability to grow a plant very quickly with only essence instead of water and other nutrients. Others may enchant or develop potions etc.
There are other utility abilities but this covers a broad range of capabilities that aren't directly involved with violent confrontation or item production.
Active abilities cost aspect essence for every use.
Passive abilities cost aspect essence to turn on.
Aspect's Soul:
An aspect's soul is the vessel that contains the essence. The stage a person's soul in will dictate how much that essence reinforces their organic body and generally how powerful their abilities will be. Aspects of lower stages find great difficulty in inflicting damage to those of higher stages.
Aspect Stage:
Here's a list of aspect classes defined by the density of aspect essence.
Faded - Essence floats like little sparks around someone's body, only observable through powerful perception abilities; only people who are destined to enter the trials have this – around 1/1000 of the general population. Children of all aspects have a 1/10 probability of becoming one.
Mature - Essence dances like small flames around someone's body, all essence perception abilities can see this, awakened upon trial completion
Evolved - Essence brightly shines around someone's body, all essence perception abilities can see this
Transcendent - Condenses into a mist around someone's body, all essence perception abilities can see this
Primordial - The essence has lost movement and became opaque infused on the surface of someone's body, can be felt as a pressure to anyone as they get close, all essence perception abilities can see this
Monster Stages:
Here's a list of monster classes defined by the density of monster essence. The stage a monster is in dictates its general physical prowess and number of abilities along with its volume of essence. While a mature aspect can inflict damage to a monster of any stage, how much damage they do quickly drops off the higher the essence differential.
Stages:
Nymphal
Larval
Chrysalis
Ravenous
Titled Monsters:
Titled monsters are capable of having human-like intelligence, having servants, producing lesser-subspecies, and more. The title is always displayed above their heads.
Essence Equipment:
After slaying a monster and crushing its core, the essence may forge into a usable tool. The tool takes on characteristics of the monster, enchanting it with them. Aspects with enchanting abilities may also infuse weapons with essence. Only enchanted weapons or abilities are capable of scratching rift monsters. Equipment also have tiers which are calculated by their strongest enchantment. The amount of essence an enchantment is infused with determines its rank and cost of activation, Patrick's dagger is ordinary and didn't require any essence for activation. The ranks are:
Ordinary - Least and weakest amount of enchantments
Uncommon
Unusual
Fabled - Has a unique enchantment
Mythic - Capable of extraordinary feats