Gleth - The Bloom Spreads

Gleth is a decaying industrial fantasy world where magic is cultivated from living organisms rather than naturally cast. Vast industries harvest fungal growths, bone cultures, ocean rot, and parasitic organisms to refine magical reagents. Over centuries this exploitation created an expanding biological phenomenon known as The Bloom, a semi-sentient ecosystem that mutates land, animals, and people. Governments deny its danger while secretly profiting from it. Cities survive through trade, denial, and careful containment of the spreading rot.

Gleth has no neat kingdoms — instead it consists of industrial territories built around resource extraction. Major regions include: The Karth Basin - A lowland region full of sinkholes and fungal farms. Heavy Bloom presence. Workers live short lives here. The Iron Littoral - A polluted coastline where alchemical shipping cities refine oceanic organisms into magical fuel. The Salt Marches - A flat inland desert where ancient salt deposits are mined for reagents used to suppress Bloom growth. The Low Cities - A cluster of densely built trade cities where most politics occur. The campaign begins in one of these. The Underreach - A network of partially mapped underground caverns where Bloom ecosystems have grown unchecked for centuries.

Most people in Gleth are human, but centuries of exposure to Bloom and magical industry have created strange populations. Pitfolk - Humans adapted to fungal work environments. Pale skin, thick lungs, resistant to spores. Brineborn - Coastal workers mutated by long exposure to ocean reagents. Webbed fingers, grey skin, unsettling calm demeanour. Bloom-Scarred - People partially transformed by the Bloom. Feared and heavily regulated. Ledger Houses - Merchant families that control magical extraction industries. Culturally obsessed with accounting, ownership, and legality. There are no classic fantasy races like elves or dwarves. Those myths exist only in old children’s pamphlets.

1. The Bloom is spreading faster than anyone admits. 2. Several refinery guilds have begun secret experiments weaponizing Bloom organisms. 3. The Salt March miners claim the Bloom is learning to resist suppression salts. 4. Entire towns occasionally vanish into sinkholes filled with new fungal forests. 5. The public is slowly realizing that no one actually knows how to stop it.

Magic is biological extraction. It comes from: • fungal cultures • bone distillation • parasite symbiosis • deep-sea organisms • rare mineralized tissues Casters typically use refined organisms or injected reagents, not innate spellcasting. Religion exists but is fragmented. The most common belief system is The Accounting of Flesh — the idea that all living matter eventually returns to a larger cycle of transformation. Some believe the Bloom is simply that cycle accelerating. Others think it is something that arrived from somewhere else.

Very little is known about other planes. However, Bloom growth occasionally forms structures resembling nervous systems or organs on a massive scale. Some scholars suspect the Bloom may be growing toward something, like a plant reaching light. No one knows what that “light” might be.

The Quiet Soil (unknown antiquity) - A mostly natural world. Magic existed but was rare and mysterious. The Harvest Age (400 years ago) - Discovery that magical properties could be extracted from organisms. The Refinement Age (200 years ago) - Industrialized magical agriculture and alchemy. The Bloom Century (present) - The first uncontrolled biological magical ecosystems appear. Most governments still insist the Bloom is temporary contamination.

The currency is called Spines - small slivers of polished bone used as standardized trade markers. Large transactions use bundled marrow-certificates, issued by refinery guilds. Counterfeiting Spines is common and often creative. Major commodities: • fungal reagent bricks • marrow distillate • salt suppressants • preserved magical parasites • Bloom samples (illegal but valuable) Trade routes follow refinery supply chains, not geography. Caravans often transport living organisms in reinforced tanks. Occasionally they escape. This makes roads… interesting.

Law is mostly enforced by Extraction Charters — corporate-like entities granted rights to harvest resources. Crimes are often punished through indenture contracts, forcing criminals into dangerous labor. Bloom-scarred individuals must legally register themselves in most territories. Many simply don’t. Adventurers are viewed as: • salvage operators • smugglers • liability risks Society tolerates them when convenient.

Creatures are rarely “evil”. They are usually industrial accidents that lived too long. Examples: Burrow Choirs - Massive worm colonies that produce harmonic vibrations capable of cracking stone. Glass Stags - Animals whose bones crystallized after mineral exposure. The Unledgered - Former workers abandoned by refinery guilds after mutation. The Archivists - A secret organization collecting Bloom samples to “understand its intentions.” Their methods are deeply unethical.