At the heart of the solar system is an enormous wellspring of magic called the Continuum. Alone of all the celestial bodies, it emits all types of magic in equal amounts, plus the rare seventh magic that generates naturally nowhere else. It is so powerful, it emits magic on the visual spectrum too; unlike regular light this energy does not suffer the inverse square law, and simply floods the entire system in ways defiant of classical physics. There have been no recorded instances of anyone getting inside the event horizon of the Continuum and returning; this has lead to a number of cults to spring up in its worship, a number of them going so far as to call their leaders Continuum Summoners. This is, of course, preposterous as everyone knows the Continuum does not choose a Summoner the way the planets do.

A small, hard rock of a planet, Fire is by far the smallest planet in the Continuum system. With days longer than its nights, no spot on the entire planet has ever felt rainfall. A large portion of the planet's surface is varying types of sandy and rocky deserts, and the only inhabitable spot on the planet for non-elementals is the area around the Fire Summoner's palace. Located near the only surface water feature on the planet, both the palace and the river it is near have been the site of brutal magical battles fought between Summoners and those who disagreed with them for the right to rule the planet. As a consequence, the river now carries powerful magical residue in its waters as it flows through contaminated lands.

At the core of the planet lies a wellspring of Fire magic. Two active volcanoes on the surface are the most direct connections to that spring, in much the same way artesian wells naturally give access to underground water sources. The magic around them is so intense that no-one but the Fire Summoners and Fire Elementals can approach the calderas. It is rumored that each contains a powerful Fire dragon, but no-one has been able to confirm or deny those allegations for generations.

While one of the largest planets by far going purely by atmospheric surface area, the Water planet has no natural land masses. With the wellspring of Water magic at its core as well, some intrepid - and foolish - explorers have claimed that a sufficiently shielded craft could, theoretically, dive from one side of the planet to the other by passing through the core. No human who has attempted it has survived the trip, but the wide variance in depth across the surface of the planet is undeniable.

While no portion of the planet is shallow enough to wade in, there are sections where free-diving - diving without any sort of equipment - is both possible and pleasant. Those areas, while full to bursting with all kinds of strange wildlife, are few and far in between. More common are the areas with a mile and more of water above the seafloor; rumor has it that there are cities where no human has tread in those deeps, fed and sheltered by the nearby wellspring of Water magic.

Despite many expeditions, the Company has never discovered such a place and has since moved those rumors into the files of other untrue myths and legends. Certainly there is no permanent human habitation on the planet, save for the Water Summoner. Older children like to scare younger ones at night with the tales of the Water Summoner having gills and fishlegs, and that if the younger children spend too long in the bathtub they'll get fishlegs too. The Company has verified that this is not the case and issued notices to this effect, but the stories continue unabated.

The only notable location on the Water planet is the Company laboratory facility known as LAST SHORE. It's a combination over/under development and research building, with the lower-security labs and the living quarters on the surface and the high-security labs on the ocean floor a mile deep. The surface labs were largely for weapons and material development - nothing terribly surprising or illegal. The deep labs, however, were reserved for human and other sentient being experimentation. Sam and Puq were the only survivors of those experiments.

Home to a relatively low population and prone to intense electrical storms on the surface, the Lightning planet lives up to its name. The main exports are Lightning-filled batteries and specially assembled parts; the intense storm seasons dictate the flow of life for all the residents and more than half the year nothing at all gets exported because the storms have been known to knock ships out of the sky.

Still, the people of the Lightning planet take to the unique challenges of their environment with aplomb. Experimentation and ingenuity are highly-prized skills, and once-yearly competitions for every age group mean that they are honed to an astonishing degree. Winning at those competitions, especially repeatedly, is a quick way to make it to the top of Lightning planet society and the planet boasts proudly of its meritocracy. Even the Lightning Summoner competes, though their competitions differ from the more usual ones for the citizenry and if they fail the results can often be catastrophic.

Rex grew up on the Lightning planet until the tender age of 11. Her village was not one of the more prestigious places to live, but it still boasted a handful of people every year who competed in the planet-wide contests and did very well. When Rex was 11, more than 20 years ago, a mysterious, Malicious, invading force came into her town and killed every man, woman, person, and child - except for Rex. To this day the remains of that village stand empty, and no-one dares to try and resettle it.

The Void planet is by far the most heavily populated planet in the system. With well over seven trillion people living on its surface, the City encompasses the globe. There are some parks, of course, some areas of greenery set aside for the wealthier inhabitants, but by and large the entire planet is paved. Void imports more than 90% of its foodstuffs from the Bloom planet, and maintains a one-month emergency supply of food in case of catastrophe.

The Company - not the only company, of course, but far and away the largest one - was founded and has its headquarters on the Void planet, not terribly far from the Summoner's palace. That section of the City, though it has no real geographic boundaries separating it from the rest of the City, is considered to be the capitol area. Bureaucrats and other peons fill the mindless apartments and sectional office spaces, working through the enormous weight of paperwork generated by governing that many people. No factories are allowed in the capitol district, and laboratories face strict emissions standards to be allowed in the area.

It's worth noting that though the Void planet is the natural locus of Void magic in the system, Void in and of itself is a difficult magic to access and harness properly. Not only does it make doing magic on the surface of the planet difficult, it also tends to disrupt some of the more advanced technologies that the Company has developed; thus the planet as a whole tends to use technology several decades behind the actual technical acumen available from the Company resources.

While only middling in terms of human population, the Bloom planet is bursting with life. From rivers green with hydrilla mats to cliff faces hung with vines, every inch of water, ground, and sky is home to millions of species of insects, plants, animals, birds, fungi, algae, and more. The well of Bloom energy in the heart of the planet drives it all, and millions of metric tons of biomass are shipped in and out every day to feed the hungry populations of other planets.

The largest city on the planet - more like a small town, really, with a population of around five thousand - is Homestead, and host to the Elder Seed facility. The Company set the facility up on paper to do agricultural experiments to draw greater yields from hydroponics. In reality, the Company was experimenting with harnessing and crystallizing the magic of Bloom to carry that fertility to other places; unrestricted growth is also a true facet of cancer and other diseases, and it is possible to make Bloom just as deadly as its counterparts.

Thousands of years ago, the Blight planet was one of the most respected planets in the system. While quieter than its twin of Bloom, Blight was richly green in its own right, brilliant emerald swamps teeming with complex ecosystems designed to break down the excess matter Bloom produced. Blight was the planet of genteel death, a quiet resting place that no other planet would ever consider violating. Its funeral services were booked years in advance, and once upon a time it was considered the only acceptable place to be interred.

All that changed when Slakta began practicing necromancy on the dead there. No longer was there the guarantee of peace in the graves of Blight, and moreover her twisting of the planet's magic sickened Blight to its very core. Gone were the emerald swamps and the quiet drain that lulled those whose time had come into the quietus of death; the swamps became foul black mires that sought to trap travellers in their depths, and as Slakta used up the resources available on the planet the pull of Blight strengthened. Only the hardiest crops could survive the drain, and the people, too, sickened and died in droves.

Now Blight is seen as the least of the planets in the system. Death clings to its nook and cranny, refusing to let go despite the inhabitant's best efforts. The Company has largely written the planet off, and only cares enough about it to include it in food shipments from Bloom.

Like most moons in the system, Cylvahl Cylesso has no particular type of magic that eddies through it strongly. The magics present on it are a naturally-flowing combination of all seven types, with perhaps a bit more Continuum than any other kind due to its proximity to the wellspring-star. The closest orbital body to the center in the entire system save for the Continuum itself, Cylvahl Cylesso is home to the monastery of the Order Parallel, and has been since time immemorial.

Though there are no records of any hostile forces beseiging the monastery, it is a very fortified building and rotations of guards stand on the walls and gates every hour of day or night. The staff do not live in the monastery itself, instead living in small, white-stuccoed homes a short distance away in a small village. Though strangers arrive often enough to try and join the ranks of the Parallels, the level of technology is centuries behind nearly the entire rest of the system. Food is grown locally according to traditions going back to the founding of the monastery, and it is one of the few places where the Company holds almost no sway.

Recent events have hinted that there are dark things afoot on Cylvahl Cylesso, however, and the Order Parallel may be more than it seems. Time will tell whether they are there to preserve the system...or aid in its destruction.

An experimental dropship, the Void Jumper was originally stored aboard the Haven to transport it to the testing grounds near the Fire planet once the Haven had finished the trip for the Fire Summoner. When that plan fell through, Captain Matt Vancil authorized its use to pierce the magical shields that had sprung up around all the planets in the system. The Void Jumper, specially hardened against magic and magic effects, has proven to be the only conveyance able to do so. Additionally, it DOES have a manual with it, but it has only ever been read once - who knows what secrets it might contain? Certainly not the protagonists.

A fantastical realm of pure magic, the phase state is directly overlaid atop reality. Wherever a real place is, it is reflected in the Phase state. The most interesting thing about the Phase state is that it shows the most accurate representation of what its constituent parts are. Looking at a person in the Phase State is highly unlikely to show you the exact same things you would see in the real world; or rather, it is a more symbolic and exaggerated version of what's in the real world. The Phase State is as much mental as it is physical, and symbolism plays into it heavily. Concealing one's true nature in the Phase State is exponentially harder than doing so in the real world because it requires, fundamentally, fooling yourself as much as fooling other people - though, conversely, if one believes an untruth hard enough in the real world it may manifest itself in the Phase State.

While the Phase State is a step outside of reality, it is not disconnected from it and living beings may pass in and out of the Phase State as they can. More importantly, the Phase State serves as a buffer for the Places Beyond; stepping out the far side tends to have terrible consequences, and the price for doing so goes up every time.

One of the realms beyond the Phase State is the Malice. According to one of the avatars of the Malice, it used to be as much a part of the real world as any of the other types of magic. Something happened a long time ago - longer than humanity has existed - that upset the balance between the magics, and the Malice was sent away beyond the Phase State to stop it from consuming the whole of reality. The Malice is ever hungry, however, and the Phase State could not hold it back forever. Tag is the latest in a long line of attempts by the Malice to gain a foothold back in reality that it can then leverage into a full return - and, subsequently, a full consumption.