Era II · SMOG
In an era marked by the throes of industrial revolution, trench warfare and the cacophony of clanking mechanical machines define the landscape. The world is shrouded in billowing black smoke, the grim aftermath of ceaseless industry. Chemical weapons proliferate, armoured machines dominate the battlefield and generations are born into wars their grandparents failed to finish.
SMOG: ErrackErrack in the SMOG ageExplore maps The world right now
The Industrial Revolution reshapes every facet of human life. Railways bind nations to coal basins and munitions markets; factory cities breathe through forests of chimneys; bolt-action rifles, artillery and armoured machines turn distance into a calculation of range and production. The weapons of humankind bear down upon Myrkild hordes with relentless industrial might, yet every victory leaves poisoned soil, ruined lungs and another demand for steel.
Classism remains rife, hardened by a long detestation of Resonance. Politics, pacts and manipulation keep the wealthy in power while Resonants are conscripted by default, regardless of age, and sent to the front to bolster ordinary soldiers. The crucible of industrialisation has altered the nature of warfare forever; the price of progress is etched into the blood and anguish of those made to operate it.
Primer
Enough context to enter the era without front-loading the encyclopaedia.
People & power
Factory owners, ministries, officer corps and railway combines decide who receives fuel, medicine, shelter and protection. Workers can halt the machinery through collective action, but lockouts and armed repression make every strike a contest over whether the city serves its people or consumes them.
Enter the Nine-Stack StrikeThe Wyrd
Resonance is still feared, but it is no longer left solely to priests, folklore and inherited practice. Laboratories standardise meters, militaries classify useful manifestations and governments turn Resonants into regulated labour, weapons and public hazards.
Read the first meter standardThe front
Myrkild incursions, human rivalries and Resonant accidents are fought with the same machinery. Gas shells, sealed trains and mobile armour can destroy an outbreak, but contamination and altered survivors may remain long after official maps declare the ground secure.
Powers of the age
The powers shaping SMOG are not only nations. Industry, labour and the institutions that control Resonance can command armies, starve cities or stop an entire front.
States bound together and divided by coal basins, railway gauges, munitions markets and the need to keep mass war supplied.
Owners and industrial syndicates whose control of fuel, steel and housing allows private production decisions to become public law.
Workers organised across adjoining stacks, rail yards and foundries, capable of halting the machinery upon which both city and army depend.
Conscripted specialists deployed as battlefield assets, industrial tools and living countermeasures against phenomena conventional weapons cannot contain.
What people know
Each age interprets its evidence through the institutions, instruments and fears it possesses. Greater visibility does not guarantee a complete explanation.
The record of the age
The timeline below follows the accords, strikes, disasters, inventions and wars that make SMOG possible. Its records are more numerous than CITADEL's, but quantity does not make them honest.
This list remains available when the interactive timeline cannot run.
10,703
Industrial states divided the coal basins, railway gauges and munitions markets that would define the SMOG era.
Engimanutur 02, 10,704
A leap-day pressure failure destroyed the experimental lower furnaces beneath Harkworks and opened a persistent Resonant scar.
Blodmanuthur, 10,718 — Annarrmanuthur, 10,722
A four-year respiratory crisis spread through factory cities as coal smoke, metal dust and Resonant contamination combined.
Ostermanuthur, 10,731
Guild laboratories agreed on a reproducible scale for comparing Resonant activity across instruments and cities.
Frostmanuthur, 10,746 — Þriðimanuthur, 10,749
Three winters of static warfare turned Orra Vale into the model for industrial fortification and generational siege.
7 Níundimanuthur, 10,761
Rumours that missing workers had returned altered spread across the industrial wards and triggered violent inspections.
12 Sextimanuthur, 10,775
Workers across nine adjoining furnace stacks stopped production at the midday siren.
12 Sextimanuthur, 10,775
Factory owners sealed the ward gates hours after recognising the union, trapping night crews inside and day crews outside.
Áttandimanuthur, 10,824
An armoured observation gondola climbed above the smog ceiling on a tethered electric cable before a military audience.
28 Frostmanuthur, 10,899
The last continental trench fronts fell silent beneath an ash-coloured sky, ending the wars that consumed the late industrial age.
Industrial states divided the coal basins, railway gauges and munitions markets that would define the SMOG era.
A four-year respiratory crisis spread through factory cities as coal smoke, metal dust and Resonant contamination combined.
A leap-day pressure failure destroyed the experimental lower furnaces beneath Harkworks and opened a persistent Resonant scar.
Guild laboratories agreed on a reproducible scale for comparing Resonant activity across instruments and cities.
The last continental trench fronts fell silent beneath an ash-coloured sky, ending the wars that consumed the late industrial age.
Rumours that missing workers had returned altered spread across the industrial wards and triggered violent inspections.
Factory owners sealed the ward gates hours after recognising the union, trapping night crews inside and day crews outside.
Workers across nine adjoining furnace stacks stopped production at the midday siren.
An armoured observation gondola climbed above the smog ceiling on a tethered electric cable before a military audience.
Three winters of static warfare turned Orra Vale into the model for industrial fortification and generational siege.
