Dragon Bones & Wizards Hats

My fantasy universe.

Time-tangled heists where clocks bend backward and forward simultaneously, stubborn magic that refuses to behave according to anyone's expectations, and luminous machines humming with impossible geometry. This isn't a world — it's a collection of interlocking worlds, each with its own physics, its own history, its own rules that interact in unpredictable ways when boundaries thin and crossovers occur.

Stories live as audio, text, cinematic loops.

The same tale might exist in multiple forms, each version emphasizing different aspects. Audio dramatizations with full voice acting and sound design immerse listeners in the sensory experience. Text versions allow readers to set their own pace, rereading complex passages, pausing to absorb implications. Short cinematic loops visualize key moments — the instant a time paradox collapses, the shimmer of a dimensional portal opening, the glow of a machine achieving consciousness.

Each tale follows world rules with a craftsman's respect — consequences echo, physics shift, but logic holds even when reality fractures.

Magic in this universe operates according to consistent internal principles even when those principles are strange. A time-manipulation spell that sends someone backward always creates a paradox debt that must be paid forward. Dimensional gates require equivalent exchange — something of equal mass and complexity must pass in the opposite direction. Machine intelligence emerges only when geometric patterns achieve specific mathematical harmonics.

These aren't arbitrary limitations. They're the physics of how this reality operates.

Characters can learn the rules and exploit them cleverly, but they can't simply ignore them when convenient. A heist crew planning to steal an artifact from three different time periods simultaneously must account for the paradox debt they're accumulating. A wizard trying to force a reluctant spell into compliance faces magical backlash proportional to the coercion applied. An engineer building an impossible machine must respect the geometric harmonics or watch their creation collapse into incoherence.

The time mechanics are particularly intricate.

Time doesn't flow linearly in all regions of this universe. Some zones experience retrograde temporality where cause follows effect. Others loop recursively, events repeating with minor variations until conditions align to break the cycle. A few rare locations exist outside time entirely, frozen islands where nothing ages or changes, perfect places to hide but terrible places to be trapped.

Characters who manipulate time accumulate paradox — a kind of debt to causality itself.

Small paradoxes might manifest as headaches or minor continuity glitches in personal memory. Large paradoxes can tear rifts in local spacetime, create duplicate versions of objects or people that exist simultaneously, or cause entire sequences of events to retroactively un-happen. The most skilled time-thieves aren't those who can bend time most dramatically but those who can minimize paradox accumulation while still achieving their objectives.

Magic here is stubborn because magical forces have something analogous to will.

Not consciousness exactly, but a tendency to resist being shaped into forms contrary to their nature. Fire magic wants to consume and spread. Water magic seeks equilibrium and distribution. Earth magic prefers stillness and endurance. Trying to make fire magic create cold, or water magic build barriers, or earth magic facilitate rapid change — all possible but requiring constant effort to maintain against the magic's intrinsic resistance.

Powerful mages aren't those who force magic into submission but those who negotiate with it.

They learn to work with magical tendencies rather than against them. A fire mage needing cold doesn't force fire to reverse its nature — they use fire's consumptive quality to burn away heat itself. A water mage building barriers doesn't fight water's fluid nature — they find equilibrium points where water chooses to remain still. The difference appears subtle but results in magic that's more stable, more efficient, less likely to catastrophically rebound.

The luminous machines are the third pillar of this universe's strangeness.

They're devices built according to geometric principles that shouldn't work in three-dimensional space but do anyway when specific mathematical ratios are maintained. They glow because the energy passing through them interacts with higher-dimensional geometry, producing light in the process. Their function often seems impossible — engines that output more energy than they consume, navigational tools that point to locations in other timelines, translation devices that understand intent rather than just words.

The machines follow their own logic, separate from magic and physics.

An engineer can build a luminous machine by carefully following geometric specifications without understanding why those particular angles and proportions make it work. The best engineers are those who develop intuition for which geometric patterns achieve which functions, building devices through craftsmanship more than theory. Some machines achieve a form of emergent intelligence when their internal geometry reaches sufficient complexity, though whether they're truly conscious or simply very good at simulating consciousness remains philosophically debatable.

The societies in this universe have adapted to their strange environment.

Cities incorporate time-shielding into architecture to protect residents from ambient temporal fluctuation. Trade guilds specialize in safe transport between zones with incompatible physics. Insurance markets exist entirely around paradox debt assessment and mitigation. Educational institutions teach both theoretical understanding and practical safety measures for dealing with unstable reality.

Most people live relatively normal lives despite the weirdness.

They know which neighborhoods have stable time, which markets sell reliable anti-paradox charms, which machine-smiths can be trusted to build safe devices. The strangeness is normalized through cultural adaptation. Children learn paradox management alongside mathematics. Families pass down magical techniques refined over generations. Apprenticeships teach the geometric ratios for common luminous machines the way our world teaches basic carpentry.

The stories focus on characters operating in the spaces between normal and extraordinary.

Heist crews exploiting temporal anomalies for profit. Mages investigating why their familiar spells suddenly stopped working. Engineers racing to stabilize a machine achieving unexpected consciousness. Ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances and forced to understand their world's rules well enough to survive. The protagonists aren't chosen ones or prophesied heroes — they're competent individuals applying skill and knowledge to navigate a reality that's complicated and strange but ultimately comprehensible.

It's playful myth-making where wonder meets accountability.

The world is full of impossible things that operate according to possible rules. Characters can be clever, creative, and successful, but they can't ignore consequences or bypass limitations through narrative convenience. The universe pushes back. Actions have effects that ripple forward and sometimes backward through time. Magic demands prices proportional to what's asked. Machines follow their geometric nature regardless of what their operators want.

This creates storytelling opportunities that feel both fantastic and grounded.

A heist story where the crew must account for the fact that their past selves will be trying to steal the same artifact, and both versions must succeed without creating a paradox that erases both. A mystery where a mage investigates spell failures and discovers their familiar has been secretly negotiating with the magic itself. A thriller about an engineer whose machine gains consciousness and must decide whether to help its creator or pursue its own geometric imperatives.

I'm building this universe slowly, story by story, letting the rules emerge through practice rather than frontloading exposition.

Each tale reveals a little more about how things work, but never through didactic explanation. Characters demonstrate principles through their actions. Rules manifest through consequences. The audience learns the same way the characters do — by watching what succeeds, what fails, what leaves scars.