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A world by the Kinkead family
Aetheria
“Where beautiful chaos endures, and crooked things outlast the perfect.”
A dark-fantasy world where mathematics underpins reality. Read it as a
novel, play it tonight in two text-based roleplaying games, and follow the
3D adventure we're forging next.
Aetherpark is where Aetheria's characters come to life as cartoons, rigged and
animated right in the browser. First up, The Wrong Shape: on the
last day of the road to Valeris, Sable, Elowen's shadow-panther, leaves the road
to follow a smell through the wheat fields, and finds something in the grain that
should not be there.
A 67-second animated short, with sound. Not canon: an Aetherpark preview.
The Wrong Shape · Aetherpark · 1:07
01 · The World
A universe that needs its flaws
Beneath every stone and song in Aetheria runs the Riemann Field:
a lattice of prime numbers that holds reality together and rings like a
bell when it's struck. Three forces pull on it.
I
Order
Gives life its shape: law, pattern, the steady beat of the world. Left alone, it hardens into sterile stillness.
II
Chaos
Gives life its breath: change, wildness, invention. Left alone, it dissolves everything into formless ruin.
III
The Void
What remains when both are gone. It doesn't need to win. It only has to wait for the other two to fail.
“Without order, there is chaos. Without chaos, there is nothing.”
The greatest danger in Aetheria isn't chaos. It's a perfect order, one
that would polish the world until nothing in it can move. The heroes who
stand against it survive by being gloriously, stubbornly imperfect.
Perfect things shatter. Crooked things endure.
Piran Murs, the known world
The Atlas
Five continents around the Aetherian Sea
ElandorThe smallest continent, and the most consequential. The story begins here, among four kingdoms of humans, elves, dwarves and stone giants.
KharthonThe dragon lands.
ZephyrasDeserts under a burning sun.
BorealisNorthern lakes, storms and wilderness.
MeridianTropical vine-crowned forests.
02 · The Fair Company
A mercenary company with an impossible mission
Year 1031, the city of Valeris. The Gate Wars are over, but the things that
crawled through the gates never all went home. A handful of misfits are about to
decide that winning isn't enough. This time, they'll try to save people.
The Soldier
Duncan of Thornhaven
A tactician who has outlived too many companies that wouldn't listen. Now he's founding his own, on one stubborn rule. He has no idea why the old powers of the world have started watching him.
“Better is alive. Everything else is just details.”
Heir of Valeria
Princess Alicia
The court sees a dutiful heir who attends council and smiles on cue. The court isn't looking closely enough.
“The council sees problems as isolated. I see a pattern.”
The Broker
Pip “Quickfingers” Reed
He runs Valeris's thieves from a safe house above a bakery. People call his luck uncanny. Pip would rather you didn't ask how he does it.
“Safe and profitable isn't enough. It never was.”
Prime Weaver
Valen Ceyla
An orphan raised by the Arcane Academy, Valen reads the Riemann Field the way musicians read a score. And he has noticed that someone is rewriting it.
“This isn't theoretical. This is happening right now.”
Leyguard of the Forgari
Kildrak Stoneheart
A dwarven cleric who glows brighter the harder she prays. She's bound to Duncan by a debt of iron sworn in the ashes of Thornhaven, and she has never broken her word.
“Debt of iron stands. If you call, I answer.”
The Adversary
Vaelor, Lord of Order
He offers the world a flawless peace: no suffering, no chaos, no mistakes. Those who accept come back with grey eyes and nothing left to argue about. He believes he's the hero of this story.
The Absolute.
Your guide
Thalion Oakenshield, the ancient lord of House Oakenshield, tells this tale. He has seen more of Aetheria's history than he lets on.
03 · Book One · Chapter 0
The Soldier of Valeris
The world had narrowed to three things: the ragged sound of my own breathing, the thunder of boots behind me, and the certainty that I was about to die badly.
Not cleanly. Not heroically.
Badly.
The Razorclaw was gaining. I could hear it — that wet, clicking sound its throat made between breaths, like bone scraping on bone.
Book One: The Fair Company. Ten chapters, from a doomed skirmish outside Millhaven to a shadow war in the streets of Valeris. Read it chapter by chapter on aetheria.cyncad.com.
Both are text-based roleplaying games. There are no menus
to master: you type what your character does, and an AI game master
narrates what happens next in rich prose. Think of a tabletop campaign with
a storyteller who is always ready to play.
I slip into the Maiden's Prayer and ask the barkeep who's been asking about me.
Alan Alyth doesn't look up from the glass he's polishing. “Three people tonight,” he says. “Two of them paid me not to tell you. Roll for Insight.”
Next, Aetheria steps off the page. We're building a party-based 3D
roleplaying game in the tradition of the great computer RPGs: gather your
companions, explore Elandor, and fight your way through tactical battles.
Lead a party of heroes, not just one
Choices that change the story
Tactical battles and a world you can explore
It runs on Aether Forge, our own game engine, built for the web. It's early days. Concept art is shown, not gameplay.
Behind all of it sits a private workshop: a canon vault and a set of author tools that keep a growing world consistent, from the name of every tavern to the prime numbers in its magic.
The Maiden's Prayer is open
Pull up a chair. Thalion has a story to tell, and a part for you in it.
