Order
Stability, law, trade, centralized power.
The world's physics answer to its inhabitants
No gods, no faith requirement. Seven measurable forces whose relative strength moves with what millions of people collectively do — and then changes the rules they play under.
Players are collectively programming the next state of the world
Industrialize and Machine rises. Fight long enough and Entropy does. Protect the forests and Growth does. The world is a consequence.
Entropy
Decay accelerates; ruins deepen; the frontier creeps back toward the cities.
Order
Trade friction falls, courts hold, sieges become harder to win.
Growth
Yields rise, wilderness recovers, populations expand.
Machine
Production scales; the world becomes louder, harder and less forgiving.
Void
The rules loosen. What comes up from Depth IV comes up more often.
Dream
Improbable things become possible; the world stops being purely material.
Time
History gains weight — the past becomes a force acting on the present.
Nations are composed, not assigned
Not four permanent factions you are stuck inside. A civilization can begin Liberty/Arcana and drift toward Dominion after a war it lost — and its citizens will argue about it for years.
Dominion
Strength, conquest, hierarchy.
Arcana
Knowledge, technology, manipulation of the Labyrinth.
Liberty
Decentralization, individualism, rebellion.
Harmony
Ecology, community, balance.
Transcendence
Intelligence, augmentation, post-human progression.