I've been working on this project since I started college (On/off so it isn't like I have two-three years of work to show for it). I guess it is important to start with the beginning of the idea. It originally sprang from a really short story I wrote about some medieval super-soldiers fighting an impossible battle. It was honestly nothing serious, but I ended up expanding the world endlessly. Draft after draft the world became more complex, and in some drafts shittier than the last. I'm not even sure where to begin because things rarely settle long enough to share. There is a little bit of exposition of the world I could probably share.
The world this takes place in has been called Astraea (All names are subject to change)
In this world there are 4 natural born races: O'kani, Aquivir, Gheldura, and Hasreni.
O'kani are island-dwellers (Asia-Pacific). Aquivir are the plain-dwellers (Native American). Gheldura are giant mountain-dwellers (Scandinavians). Hasreni are the desert-dwellers (middle-eastern/African).
After that you have two non-natural born races: Aetirn, and the Shadai.
Aetirn are the elve forest-dwellers, but were actually forged by a God of crafting to defend the human race (It obviously doesn't work out that way, but still that's the idea).
Shadai are a little more complex. They were born of a curse, but they were human. The curse originally morphed them into animal hybrids that could literally hunt down (think like werewolves). When the God of the Moon saw the abominations he took pity on them. Not having the strength to dispel the curse, he provided them clarity to return to something closer to human. Then the Shadai were born. Ashen skin, silvery white hair, and born with a fiery anger. There is more to them, but that is the gist of them.
The newest draft of the magic system is based off the idea that the planets in the solar system of Astraea emit a force upon the universe. These force can be tapped into, and used in different manners. This is probably the newest draft of the magic system, so it is very young. As it gets larger I might make a separate post on it.
The magical community makes up one very large and powerful faction in the world of Astraea, but there are obviously the national structures. So far there are 5 major national structures each representing the 5 major races (Shadai are poorly treated, and scattered. It isn't that they don't have structure it just isn't recognized). There is a major knight order, and a few religious orders, but those are kind of hard to get into. Most of these factions are unimportant to the main novel series.
I think that is the majority of important stuff without going to far down the rabbit hole. I only have a little bit of a story arc in place.
Before humanity was born the Gods existed. The Goddess of the Stars, and the God of the Void fought among one another, and the other gods took sides. When the God of the Void became consumed by the idea of literally consuming all living things the war fell apart. The goddess of the stars managed to force the Void to sleep. The followers of the Void managed to escape to Astraea. Once there they wreaked havoc, destroying all that humanity was. The remaining Gods who had spent their time lulling the void to sleep granted humanity knowledge that would help them combat the followers of the void. The knowledge given to humanity would be the deciding force in the coming wars. Even when the followers were defeated they remain in Astraea like a disease returning in every age. That is pretty much the very basic premise of the novel, but I haven't gotten very far beyond that.
Honestly, going through the jumble of notes that I have on this it all seems overwhelming how much useless information I have on the entire world. I mean most of it is just for me, and won't make it into the main novel series. I guess I find it cool to have all that rich detail even if it is just for me, you know?
I guess I just wanted to share a bit of the exposition. I guess if there are any thoughts, or questions I will do my best to answer them. My goal with this is just simply to start organizing my thoughts so that I can actually start moving towards a concept for the novels.