One world, one god's ambition, and the shattering that broke both into pieces still being fought over today.
Prism was meant to be Etheria's masterpiece: a single contiguous world, free of war and disease, built to nurture a people called the Onerace — gentle, harmonious, and without the divisions that plague every other race in the essenceverse. Etheria is one of the Nine of Light, gods who draw their power from a substance called Essence, and as the Supreme Gatherer she is the only one of them capable of creating and sustaining human life.
To bring Prism fully to life, Etheria needed the cooperation of all Nine — including Syn, the harbinger of death and chaos. She bargained hard to limit his contribution, and built a device called the Onestone to gather and focus the Essence of all nine gods at once, opening the way for the Onerace to cross from the Tween Place into their new world.
Syn had other plans. Together with three of the other Nine — Muez, Drethal, and Prauess — he corrupted the Onestone's activation, hoping to seize Etheria's power for himself. Etheria had prepared for betrayal: a hidden Banishment spell drained the conspirators rather than her — but the backlash was more than the stone could hold. The Onestone shattered. The single world of Prism was torn into eight continents, its gods scattered and stranded, each marooned near a different shard of shattered land.
As the loosed Essence of each god sought its way home, it swept through whatever portion of the Onerace happened to be nearest — and irradiated them. That single event, remembered now only as the Corruption, is the reason Prism's people are divided today into eight distinct, color-coded castes, each carrying a faint echo of the god whose Essence transformed them.
Essence is the raw substance of divine power — found gaseous, liquid, solid, or as supercharged plasma, drifting in cloud-like formations across the essenceverse. It is the gods' sole power source, and it cannot be permanently contained; even a god must constantly search for more. When Essence finishes a task, it disperses back into the world to be gathered again by whoever finds it first.
Every caste on Prism carries a residue of this same power, called the Sense — an inherited, race-specific ability tied to the god whose Essence irradiated their ancestors during the Corruption. A person's Sense strengthens with age and mastery, and as it does, their color deepens to match it (Functionaries famously run the opposite direction, fading from saturated yellow toward white as they mature). Calico, born of two castes at once, carry a faint trace of several Senses but master none — one of the many reasons the other castes dismiss them as lesser.
Above all castes stand the Elite, whose Sense is bending other people's will itself: they alone can Bond a Blooddread warrior into lifelong service, or Turn a member of another caste — a brutal punishment that strips a person of their color, their guild rank, and their standing all at once.
Eight peoples, one god apiece, one dominant color each. Everything about status, trade, and law on Prism runs through caste.
Pure white, created by Syn, seated in the capital of Lineage on the continent of Menon. Elites govern through two arms — crown and church — and hold power because only they can Bond a Blooddread or Turn another caste. They consider their inability to have children with any other race (save, unwillingly, the Calico) proof of their purity rather than a flaw.
Yellow-hued and created by Muez, Functionaries run Prism's governments, hospitals, and paperwork, growing paler as they age and master their Sense — a visual drift toward the Elite that has made them the ruling caste's closest allies.
Large, fierce, and honor-bound, the black-and-red Blooddread of Domin transform in battle and prize courage above nearly everything else. Conquered generations ago through a single ritual Bonding, they now serve as the Elite's soldiers — an arrangement most Blooddread experience as an unhealed wound to their pride.
Green-skinned, slight, and quietly strong, the Botanists shepherd Prism's plant life and supply much of its medicine. Their guildmasters keep close ties to Functionary healers, and their home villages sit at the forest edges beyond Lineage's walls.
Blue-skinned and fiercely independent, the Mariners of the island continent Damar'ak keep mostly to themselves and the water — a preference the Elite are happy to indulge, since governing Damar'ak is considered a punishment posting.
Keepers of Prism's domestic animals and long-haul trade routes, the brown-toned Drovers of Tandil move goods, livestock, and people between the continents' scattered settlements.
Indigo-hued and famously literal-minded builders, the Masons of Gemyana quarried the mountain passes that connect the continents and raised much of Lineage's stonework, including, some say, its most secret tunnels.
Any child of two different castes (the Elite excepted) is born Calico — a scattershot mix of color and Sense that the rest of Prism considers worthless. Purecaste mothers of Calico children are executed in a ritual called Walk in the White; their children are raised in church-run camps and trained for trades the purecastes consider beneath them. Hue is Calico.
Nine gods, each drawing power from a different portion of the light spectrum, shaped Prism's castes and now watch over them from a distance — some more benevolently than others.
The Supreme Gatherer, most powerful of the Nine, and Prism's creator. Cast into a long remission after the Corruption while she gathers strength to reclaim what was lost.
Evil made subtle rather than loud. Once Supreme Gatherer himself, he engineered the Corruption and continues working through agents across Prism to finish what he started.
God of the Botanists, green-hued, keeper of all plant life and the disproportionate strength hidden in it.
Warrior goddess of the Blooddread. She believes she honors Syn through war and expects to rule at his side.
Blue god of the Mariners, master of tides, rivers, and storms — a loner who dislikes interference in his affairs.
Yellow-hued god of the Functionaries: order, logic, healing, and government. Once neutral, now leaning toward Syn's faction.
Brown, animalistic god of the Drovers and lesser creatures, and Syn's closest collaborator in his failed attempts to create life of his own.
Indigo god of the Masons, shaper of continents, and one of the few gods who never joined Syn's conspiracy against Etheria.
The quietest of the Nine of Light. Where the others create, Herald channels — harmonizing the Essence of the other eight. Believed by most of the essenceverse to have been destroyed in the Corruption.
When the Onestone shattered, seven fragments — the Heartshards — scattered across Prism, each one still carrying the Essence of the god it was forged from. Whoever holds one holds real power; whoever could gather them all could undo the Banishment itself.
The heart of the Onestone itself, and the source of Syn's Essence — hidden deep in the caverns of Leer on the Functionary continent of Jahadin.
An emerald fragment carrying Delic's Essence, embedded in a magical tree somewhere on Damar'ak, said to be the reason each continent grows its own distinct plant life.
A sapphire shard of Couel's power, resting at the bottom of a whirlpool on the continent of the Elite — it governs the tides and the rivers that feed them.
Muez's fragment: capable of great healing and insight, and just as capable of driving its holder mad.
Prauess's Essence, embedded in the living heart of one of the last vicious dragons of Domin — and impossible to claim without the beast's heart still beating.
A fiery, fear-inducing shard of Drethal's power, said to grant command over birds of prey to whoever holds it.
Set into the grip of the legendary Hammer of Ashlar — the only tool said to be capable of joining the remaining fragments back into one.
The Corruption broke one contiguous landmass into eight continents, each home to a single caste: Menon (Elite, capital city Lineage), Damar'ak (Mariner), Domin (Blooddread), Sorbrehia (Botanist), Tandil (Drover), Gemyana (Mason), Jahadin (Functionary), and the ice-locked Barran, where Herald was marooned alone.
Seat of the Overlord and capital of the entire Elite continent, Lineage rises out of dense forest above a deep river gorge in a colossal three-tier structure — a "wedding cake" of a city. At its highest point stands the Mainstay, a sheer rock pillar crowned by a single, dominant white spire that can be seen for miles: the palace and seat of Elite power. Below it sits a walled guild tier, home to the guildhouses of the caste crafts and trades. And at the base, spilling out along the gorge and river, is the sprawling outer city, where most of Lineage's population — including its Calico — actually lives.
Beyond Lineage's walls lie the places Book One travels through: Ethni, a hidden settlement where Calico families live under the Elite's notice; Northshore, a Botanist trading town across the Thunder Steppes; the deep woods of West Wilding; the treacherous mountain passes of Fallen Heights; and Grayhl Lake, fed by the river that runs down from Lineage itself.