The Lore of Tellus: A World of Alchemy, Science, and Quiet Change
Some fictional worlds appear fully formed.
You step into them and everything already seems decided — the rules, the history, the conflicts that shape the story. Other worlds feel as though they are still unfolding. They carry the sense that events are still moving quietly beneath the surface.
Tellus belongs to the second kind.
It is a world shaped by institutions, ideas, and the slow movement of knowledge.
A World Between Two Ways of Thinking
One is structured science, built on steam, iron, and raw power, supported by universities and formal study, otherwise known as the New World. The other is alchemical and magical. Steeped in tradition, it's much older, more intuitive, shaped by centuries of observation and symbolism. This is the Old World.
Neither disappears when the other grows stronger. They exist in tension. The Great War still casts a long shadow, and the mistrust it left behind has never entirely settled. That friction sits at the centre of the world.
Institutions and Influence
Knowledge in Tellus is rarely neutral.
Universities gain influence. Laboratories produce discoveries that change how cities function. At the same time, older disciplines resist being quietly replaced.
Ideas carry consequences.
A discovery in one place can reshape policy somewhere else. An institution that once seemed secure may gradually lose its authority.
These shifts happen slowly.
Often they are barely visible until time has passed.
A World That Changes Gradually
Tellus was built to move at its own pace.
Cities expand. Machines improve. Disciplines rise and fall in influence. What once seemed certain begins to shift as new knowledge appears.
The world does not reset with each story.
It continues.
Where the Story Begins
The Lore of Tellus series begins with Firestone.
At this point in the world’s history, alchemy still holds ground beside formal science. The balance is uneasy but intact.
What begins as a personal investigation gradually reveals something larger — a change that may alter the relationship between knowledge and power across the world.
Later books widen that perspective.
The world becomes clearer as it unfolds. If you’re curious where to begin, the full reading order explains how the books unfold.
A World That Continues
Tellus was never designed to exist only inside a single story.
It was imagined as a place shaped by time. By debate. By discoveries that carry consequences beyond the moment they appear.
That is often where a world begins to feel convincing.
Not when everything is explained, but when it feels as though life continues just outside the page.
Find out more about Steampunk Fantasy Novels here.
