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The Setting

This high fantasy setting is called The Apparatus. It has been a creative effort since 1987, with many revisions and collaborations throughout the years.

If you are looking for something specific, then you probably want to start with the Compendia, which is a list of different areas of the setting. Otherwise, if you are just browsing the wiki, then the information below is a good entry point.

Origins

The Apparatus is organized around four Origins of Power.

Integral Origin

The Integrum is the natural world as experienced by its inhabitants, the only Origin of Power governed by consistent, predictable natural laws. It is the sole Origin that can be understood through logic, observation, and empirical inquiry, making it the only scientifically knowable foundation of reality. In metaphysical terms, the Integrum functions as a vast, finely crafted mechanism: a clockwork universe whose orderly operation is known as the Apparatus, from which the campaign world takes its name.

The Integrum defines the default state of existence. Wherever its influence is unimpeded, reality behaves lawfully and coherently, producing an orderly and often idyllic environment for its denizens. All instability, contradiction, and suffering arise from interference by other Origins, which disrupt the normal function of the machine rather than originating within it. Though indifferent, the Integrum is not accidental: it is the enduring manifestation of the designs of its creators, the long-vanished Founders, whose will remains embedded in its structure even in their absence.

The main entry points for exploring The Integrum are:

Integral Realms: Shards, The Ether, The Astral Sky, The Great Barrier
Gods: Gods of Acrolon, Gods of Pelithos, Gods of Tonwei Unchained, Gods of Vashad, Founders
Mortals: Humans, Elves, Orcs, Dwarves
Paths to Power: Mastery, Heraldry, Arcana, Solipsism
History: The Shattering, The Fall

Strange Origin

The Strange is an Origin of Power born from the first great cataclysm of the Integrum, known as The Shattering. When the Apparatus was broken, fragments of its orderly structure failed, and from those ruptures the Strange leaked into existence as a metaphysical residue of malfunctioning reality. Unlike the Integrum, which operates through consistent natural law, the Strange exists as a substantive force that pools, spreads, and persists wherever the integrity of reality is compromised.

The Strange by its nature defies simple definition. It is, at its core, an aberration or subversion of natural law. Events shaped by this Origin are coherent, but only through dream logic and narrative intuition rather than linear reason. Time, identity, and consequence lose their fixed forms. For example, beings born of the Strange cannot truly die, instead fading and reemerging with fractured memories that recall past lives out of order, as though remembered from a dream. Though the Strange itself possesses no will or intent, it readily absorbs the influence of minds within it, allowing places and phenomena to develop emergent, symbolic behaviors that reflect accumulated desire, fear, and identity.

Strange manifestations are both psychological and physical. It gives rise to dreams, madness, prophecy, and inspiration, as well as to monsters, mutations, and violations of biological finality that intrude upon the Integrum. Dangerous yet alluring, the Strange offers mortals power, meaning, or transcendence at a cost that is rarely understood in advance. Once established, it clings to reality, requiring active intervention to remove, and stands as the primary source of chaos within an otherwise lawful universe.

The primary entry points for exploring The Strange are:

Strange Realms: Dreamlands, Strange Sea, Verging Wild, Arcadia, The Horizon
Strange Gods: Fey Gods, Eldritch Gods
Strange Species: Fey, Eldritch
Paths to Power: Pacts

Fury Origin

Fury is the oldest of the Origins of Power, predating the creation of the Integrum and the arrival of the Founders. Before the Apparatus imposed lawful structure upon reality, the universe existed under the dominion of Fury, an Origin defined by conflict and dominance. In this primordial state, existence was governed by an endless struggle known as the Contest Eternal, in which vast beings called Titans vied ceaselessly for supremacy over the universe, transforming and absorbing one another.

The Founders arrived as colonizers, marking a violent interruption of this primordial condition. Through war and imprisonment, the Titans were subdued, and their prisons became the engines that power the Apparatus itself. As a result, Fury is largely sealed away from the Integrum, its presence reduced to rare and catastrophic leaks when those bindings are damaged or fail. When Fury does intrude upon Integral reality, it manifests as overwhelming power, elemental mutation, and the drive toward hierarchy and domination, often giving rise to cult movements and living embodiments of unleashed natural forces. Though morally neutral in its own terms, Fury stands as a reminder that the stability of the Integrum is not native to the universe, but imposed, and maintained at a continuing cost.

The best entry points for exploring Fury are:

Void Origin

The Void is the youngest of the Origins of Power, born from the same cataclysm as the Strange during the event known as the Shattering. Unlike the Strange, which emerged as a metaphysical disorder leaking from the damaged Apparatus, the Void arose from a far more concrete rupture: a breach torn through the Great Barrier that separates the universe from the emptiness beyond it. Through this wound, the Void became aware of the universe and, for the first time, capable of acting upon it.

In its original state, the Void was a passive and corrosive environment, dangerous but indifferent, eroding existence only over immeasurable spans of time. The Shattering transformed it into something far more hostile. Infused with will, the Void became an Origin of Power defined by annihilation, an active drive to erase reality entirely rather than merely wear it down. It does not seek to rule, reshape, or corrupt the universe into a new form; it seeks its complete and final silence.

The Void cannot destroy reality outright. Instead, it infiltrates and undermines it, spreading through corruption, influence, and subversion. Void power manifests through shadow, demons, and apocalyptic cultic movements that weaken the fabric of existence from within, working toward breaches through which greater annihilation can occur. Unlike the other Origins, the Void is antagonistic to all forms of being, whether Integral, Strange, or Fury-born, and stands as the only force against which all other powers might conceivably unite. Though it can be resisted indefinitely, its persistence ensures that the universe exists in a constant state of siege against oblivion.

The best entry points for exploring Void are:

Rules

To see how the setting is expressed in various rule systems, you can click the rule systems below.

Dungeons & Dragons 2024

Notes

A place to take Notes that don't have a home yet.