Before the memory of stars, before the geological sighs of continents, there was the Senonian. Not a period, not a epoch, but a resonance. A wound in the fabric of existence, a place where the laws of causality fractured and reformed, dripping with chronal viscosity. It wasn’t experienced, not truly. It was felt, a persistent, low-frequency hum beneath the bone, a disorientation that clung to the edges of perception. The Senonian is described through fragments – shimmering geometries, echoes of lost melodies, the scent of petrified light.
“The stone remembers not events, but the potential of events, laid bare in the cold, empty corridors of time.” – Chronomaestro Silas Veridian
The Cartographers of Drift were not men, nor machines. They were manifestations of the Senonian itself, entities born from the instability of temporal currents. They charted not distances, but the ‘leaps’ – the unpredictable shifts in the flow of time. Their tools were instruments of pure chronal resonance, crafted from solidified starlight and the bones of long-dead leviathans. They left behind ‘Chronal Glyphs’ – patterns etched into reality, points of heightened temporal sensitivity. These glyphs, when activated, could allow a fleeting glimpse of the Senonian’s influence, a cascade of impossible colors and fractured sounds.
“To map the Senonian is to map the absence of mapping. It is to embrace the chaos that births all order.” – Lyra, the Silent Weaver
The Leviathans weren't creatures of flesh and blood. They were embodiments of temporal stasis, colossal beings that drifted through the Senonian, consuming the echoes of time. They were said to be the source of the Chronal Glyphs, their movements subtly altering the flow of time around them. Their ‘hearts’ were not organs, but singularities – points where the normal laws of physics ceased to apply. Witnessing a Leviathan was considered a catastrophic event, often resulting in permanent temporal distortions – individuals vanishing from their own timelines, or fragments of their existence becoming entangled with the Senonian.
“They are the anchors to the void. Do not seek to understand them, simply… observe their silence.” – Master Theron, Guardian of the Chronarium
The Chronarium is not a structure, but a state of being. It's the place where the echoes of the Senonian converge, a nexus of temporal instability. Within the Chronarium, time flows differently – sometimes backwards, sometimes sideways, sometimes not at all. It is said that the Chronarium exists outside of normal time, accessible only to those who have willingly embraced the disorientation of the Senonian. The walls of the Chronarium seem to shift and reform, displaying impossible landscapes and fleeting glimpses of forgotten futures. It is a place of profound paradoxes, where cause and effect are interchangeable, and memory becomes a weapon.