Welcome to Hollow Accords
A steampunk world divided by magic and machine.
Welcome to the Hollow Accords
"Two nations. One scarred world. Endless pressure beneath the surface."
The Hollow Accords is the world you're about to step into - one where invention collides with the arcane, and nothing is ever black and white. I built this world to explore the messiness of progress, the beauty and danger of magic, and the cost of ideals that go too far. It's a place shaped by war, held together by fragile truces, and waiting for people like your characters to push things forward... or burn them down.
The World at a Glance
- Diakray: An industrial superpower obsessed with order and control. They see magic as a disease - one they intend to cure through science, machines, and strict doctrine.
- Sotaria: A chaotic arcane society where magic fuels life itself. From airships to healing arts, the arcane pulses through everything. But power comes at a cost, and stability is always on the edge.
- The Borderlands: Neither here nor there - and often forgotten. Ruined cities, rogue mages, exiled engineers, and strange storms are common here. It's wild, unstable, and full of opportunity.
The Core Conflict
The last great war between Diakray and Sotaria ended with a truce. But make no mistake - this isn't peace. Saboteurs cross borders in the night. Propaganda poisons minds. And secret experiments on both sides threaten to reignite a conflict no one is ready for.
This is the world your characters inherit. What they do with it is up to them.
The Tone
- Moral grayness - you'll find good and bad on both sides.
- Stories about survival, ambition, identity, and trust.
- Secrets buried in steel vaults and leyline storms.
Maps & Regions
The world of Hollow Accords is divided in almost every way - by belief, by power, and sometimes even by the terrain itself. Below is a breakdown of the major regions your characters might travel through, escape from, or one day reshape.
⚙️ Diakray
- Region: The North and Northwest
- Terrain: Iron-capped cities, railspines, highland tundra
What to Expect:
- Cold, ordered cities forged from stone and steel
- Magic is outlawed - violations are met with swift punishment
- Tech is advanced, efficient, and tightly regulated
- Citizens live in structured harmony, though personal freedoms are scarce
Major Locations:
- Varnholde: Industrial capital and seat of the Bureau of Arcane Regulation
- Grenthar's Maw: A crater city of smokestacks and dangerous innovation
- Drosvenn: Hidden research city where the first Null Engine was created
✨ Sotaria
- Region: The South and Southeast
- Terrain: Forested lowlands, leyline plains, and floating arcane towers
What to Expect:
- Magical cities shaped into their surroundings
- Powerful spells woven into infrastructure, tradition, and daily life
- Unpredictable weather and wild leyline surges
- A culture that values individuality, emotion, and heritage
Major Locations:
- Thirelen: Ancient cliff city with its iconic levitating rings
- Elarith: Spiritual lakeside sanctuary built atop the Ether Wells
- Myndareth: A once-neutral city now pulled between tech and magic
⚔️ The Borderlands
- Region: The space between Diakray and Sotaria
- Terrain: Scorched plains, crumbling ruins, ley-warped fields
What to Expect:
- Freelancers, warbands, black market syndicates, and rogue inventors
- Experimental tech, unstable magic, and hybrid monstrosities
- A power vacuum waiting to be claimed
- The most dangerous - and opportunity-rich - place in the world
Known Powers:
- The Gilded Hand: A syndicate trafficking in outlawed technomagic
- Warlord Caen Grith: A former general with a coalition of scavenged cities
- Truce Monitors: Supposed neutral agents trying to keep peace - or control?
Maps for each of these regions are coming soon. For now, feel free to ask questions or sketch what your character might call home.
Factions at a Glance
The world of Hollow Accords is held together by a web of powerful factions - some familiar, some hidden in the shadows. These groups shape borders, beliefs, and the fate of anyone caught between them. Here's a quick breakdown of the key players your characters might align with… or oppose.
⚙️ Diakray
Diakray is a well-oiled industrial machine. Magic is outlawed here, replaced with steam, gears, and steel. Their citizens are proud of their order and innovation, and they trust in the Bureau of Arcane Regulation to keep chaos at bay.
- Known for: Steamworks, mechanical prosthetics, anti-magic tech
- Respected Traits: Discipline, invention, loyalty
- Criticized For: Suppression, rigidity, secrecy
✨ Sotaria
Sotaria thrives on arcane tradition. Magic flows freely here - beautiful, unpredictable, and essential. Its people embrace the chaotic power of the world and value self-expression and harmony over strict control.
- Known for: Leyline networks, arcane healing, floating cities
- Respected Traits: Intuition, harmony, freedom
- Criticized For: Instability, elitism, arcane accidents
⚔️ The Borderlands
The Borderlands are the world's unclaimed scar - a place where invention and madness go hand in hand. Exiles, outcasts, visionaries and warlords carve out territory here in the absence of any greater law.
- Known for: Hybrid arcano-tech, rogue guilds, unstable cities
- Respected Traits: Independence, adaptability, creativity
- Criticized For: Lawlessness, corruption, volatility
🕵️ Other Powers in Play
- The Gilded Hand: Technomagic smugglers and black-market innovators
- Truce Monitors: Ceasefire enforcers - mercenary peacekeepers with unclear loyalties
- The Daughters of the Shard: Guardians of the Ether Wells and ancient magical balance
- The Bureau of Arcane Regulation: Diakray's elite anti-magic task force
- The Arcane Harmonium: A fragile magical alliance trying to keep arcane power ethical and stable
Character Creation Guide
This world isn't just a backdrop - it's part of your character's identity. In Hollow Accords, you're building someone who's grown up in a fractured world, shaped by pressure, politics, and the gray spaces in between. Your character doesn't need to pledge allegiance to any side, but where they come from will color how the world sees them… and how they see the world.
🧑🎤 Creating a Character in Hollow Accords
Magic and machines don't play nice - but people still try. Whether you grew up under arcane tradition, strict scientific law, or somewhere between, your background matters. You can absolutely be from Diakray and still practice magic - but you'll carry the weight of that with you.
⚙️ Diakray-born
- Structured education & access to advanced tech
- Skeptical of magic, taught to fear its chaos
- May know anti-magic laws better than arcane theory
✨ Sotaria-born
- Magical literacy is part of everyday life
- Respect for traditions tied to leyline flow
- Unfamiliar or even superstitious about machines
⚔️ Borderlands-born
- Survivor of divided territories
- Knows how to work with or around both systems
- May distrust all major powers
🔧 Class & Role Suggestions
Every class can work here. The flavor is what makes it special:
- Artificers: Inventors and engineers - often from Diakray
- Wizards & Sorcerers: Common in Sotaria, feared in Diakray
- Rogues, Rangers, Fighters: Fit anywhere; seen in all regions
- Clerics, Druids, Paladins: Magical faiths align more with Sotaria, but Diakray has its own creeds
🧬 Race & Species
All official species are on the table. In this world, cultural background matters more than your lineage. A Goblin raised in Sotaria might wield arcane power with reverence. A Half-Elf raised in Diakray might wear an anti-magic badge.
⚠️ Important Note: Technomagic
You can't start with technomagic. It's outlawed, unstable, and dangerous. But it exists - and if your character wants to chase it in-game, that's a story worth telling.
⏳ Major Eras of Hollow Accords
Hollow Accords has seen its share of brilliance, collapse, and uneasy peace. These are the major turning points that define the world your characters now inherit.
Rather than list every event here, you can view the complete interactive timeline with all major historical moments, eras, and linked lore by visiting:
🏙️ Key Locations
Cities in Hollow Accords aren't just scenery - they're pressure points. They reflect the ideologies, mistakes, and resilience of the people who built them. Some are sanctuaries. Some are scars. All of them tell a story.
⚙️ Varnholde (Diakray)
The Iron Heart of Diakray. Towering factories, steam-fueled infrastructure, and zero tolerance for magic. The Bureau of Arcane Regulation rules from here - and everything runs like clockwork.
“If the gears stop turning, so does the world.”
🌋 Grenthar's Maw (Diakray)
An entire city spiraling down a crater. Forges roar day and night, and unspoken experiments simmer in the deep tiers. Everything here smells like oil, steam, and ambition.
“Down here, steam's just the surface.”
🧊 Drosvenn (Diakray)
Cold, secretive, and buried in the mountains. Most know it only as the birthplace of the Null Engine. No one enters without clearance - and no one talks about what goes on inside.
“Knowledge here is measured in containment seals.”
✨ Thirelen (Sotaria)
Floating rings, cliffside towers, and glimmering arcane bridges. A place of study and wonder - though its golden age may be behind it, the echoes of magic still hum strong.
“To walk between towers is to walk between thoughts.”
💧 Elarith (Sotaria)
A lakeside city built around the sacred Ether Wells. Peaceful on the surface, but with deep arcane currents. Guarded by the Daughters of the Shard, it's a place of quiet power.
“Some wells run dry. This one runs deep.”
🧭 Myndareth (Contested)
A fragile balance of cultures. Once a marvel of arcane-tech cooperation, now it's a city of spies, markets, and border skirmishes. Everyone wants a piece - no one owns it.
“The streets run on steam and secrets.”
🎯 Character Hook Prompts
These prompts are here to spark ideas - not lock you in. Pick one, pick a few, or just use them as springboards for character depth. The goal is to give you a reason to care about the world before the dice ever roll.
💭 Motivations & Loyalties
- What do you believe the world needs most: control, freedom, or something else entirely?
- Do you admire or despise either faction - and why?
- What cause would you secretly die for?
- Who taught you your first lesson in trust - and how did they break it?
🌪️ Where You Come From
- What part of Diakray, Sotaria, or the Borderlands do you still carry with you?
- What do people assume about you because of your homeland - and are they right?
- What law, magical or mechanical, do you ignore?
🧪 Secrets & Trouble
- What piece of forbidden knowledge have you kept hidden?
- Who knows what you've done - and what are they waiting for?
- What magical accident or malfunction marked your past?
🗺️ Why You're Here
- Why do you travel instead of staying safe?
- What do you hope to find in the cracks between factions?
- What unfinished business calls you back to the world?
📚 Quick Glossary
Here's a handful of terms your character may know - or stumble across in a bar, back alley, or Bureau interrogation room. You don't need to memorize them, but knowing a few might help you blend in.
🧭 World & Technology
- Null Engine: Diakray tech that erases or suppresses magic in a target area. Scary, rare, and illegal without clearance.
- Technomagic: Hybrid of arcane and machine - unpredictable and outlawed nearly everywhere.
- Pressure Forge: Massive steam-powered plants that mass-produce tech in Diakray cities.
- Ether Wells: Deep arcane springs guarded by the Daughters of the Shard. Rumored to be sentient.
- Arcano-Industrial War: The last great war between the factions. Ended in exhaustion, not victory.
🔮 Magic & Arcana
- Leylines: Magical rivers beneath the surface. Still unstable after the Sundering.
- Sky-Rings: Floating rings used for magical transit across Sotaria. Many still hover above ruins.
- Leyline Storms: Arcane weather gone rogue - bend time, space, and memory. Avoid.
- The Sundering: The catastrophe that destroyed Vireholm and fractured the world's magic.
⚖️ Factions & Forces
- Bureau of Arcane Regulation: Diakray's magical enforcers. Efficient. Relentless.
- Arcane Harmonium: Sotaria's fragile arcane council. More ideals than unity.
- Truce Monitors: Neutral mercenaries trying (sometimes) to keep the peace.
- The Gilded Hand: Borderland syndicate dealing in black market magic-tech.
Have an idea for your own term? Make one. Slang evolves - especially under pressure.