The world of Inmanis is vast and barren.

Total population is unknown but thought to be sparse. Its denizens gather in high numbers in places called Oasis. These safe havens are separated from one another by measureless distance.

In fact, the world between these Oasis has been left well alone, and as a result is shrouded in obscurity. The fearless and the foolhardy are known to set off in an attempt to plot out and tame these wild lands. These expeditions range from weeks to years and some… some have yet to return at all.

Curiously, it seems after comparing notes from the various expeditions that these boundless regions are not constant. Every explorer's tales vary incredibly from the last. Inmanis appears to be unyielding, everchanging and unrelenting.

Stranger yet are people who manage to return from pilgrimage, returning from the Unknown having always bore witness to otherworldly mysteries:

Giant structures from strange civilizations, colossal beings of light wandering alongside them, and all kinds of unexplained manifestations …
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If all these happenings weren’t unsettling enough, there is one thing stranger still. Those who do manage to come back to the Oasis sometimes do so with mysterious masks stuck to their heads. They claim to have access to their Altered Egos which bestow upon them the ability to travel outside of our material world. They don’t stay for long in the Oasis and are uninterested in teaching much to the rest; the only parting wisdom they offer is an insistence that everyone go on their own quest into the Unknown.

They are known as Ascended Guides…