An intro to Volant - Kingdoms of Air and Stone

Several people have asked me what Volant is all about, so here's a quick precis:

Volant - Kingdoms of Air and Stone is set in a world where two sets of wizards - the Living Wizards and the Stone Wizards - had waged a deadly war of mutual extermination long ago. In the penultimate strike, the Living Wizards had created horrific animal and plant monsters to destroy the civilization of the Stone Wizards. In return, the Stone Wizards had released their last spell, changing the fabric of all metamorphic rock so that it floated. These last spells burned out all the magical potential in humanity, so from that time forward, humans could only use the magic imbued in plants and animals, as well as the lifting powers of the stone.

Mountain ranges tore out of the ground like teeth being pulled. They soared up into the sky, with their attendant valleys, rivers, lakes, and deserts along for the ride. People were able to build and maintain their civilization on these skylands, while the civilizations on the surface below crumbled. They built ships with floatstone and keels of the straight grained keelstone and flew from skyland to skyland, though they could not go down to the earth below. They tamed and domesticated the giant birds created by the Living Wizards and rode them as well, even to the ground to gather scarce materials, plants and artifacts.

They terraced their hills and mountainsides to better farm their scarce soils. They learned that they could capture other skylands, lash them together, and they would slowly grow into each other over the years. The lands floated on the winds over the earth, and they learned to roughly control their skylands to mostly, awkwardly attempt to keep them out of the dangerous gyres and currents. They chained floated forts to mountains they thought would soon tear free of the earth to claim them, and fight off challengers.

Humans left below abandoned their civilizations and lived in the wild, wary of the great monsters who ruled their lands. Some served as guides to the Bird People when they came down from their skylands, while others hid and would have nothing to do with them. They Bird People may have nice things to trade, but they would soon leave, while the monsters would always be there.

-clash