The World of Scadrial

[Cʀʏsᴛᴀʟ]

History
About a thousand years ago, the Lord Ruler seized the power of allomancy at the Well of Ascension. Before his Ascension, the world was terrorized by an evil blight called the Deepness. Before his ascended, the Lord Ruler allegedly defeated the Deepness. Stories are told about times before his reign, when plants were green and the sky was blue. Now the Ashmounts spew ash that turn the sky gray and the plants are ragged and brown under the giant red sun. Little progress has been made in the last thousand years. The Lord Ruler suppresses all technological advances, the only major discovery made since his ascension being the process of canning goods. Scadrial has horse-drawn carriages and trains, but whenever someone discovers gunpower, the Lord Ruler makes sure the secret never gets out.

Religion
To most of the people in Scadrial, the Lord Ruler is a god, or rather a piece of God. "The Sliver of Infinity," they call him. The Terris people, however, believed in two opposing gods: Preservation and Ruin. In the beginning, Preservation made a deal with Ruin. Preservation created life with the promise that Ruin could one day destroy it. However, Preservation later betrayed Ruin by imprisoning him, a feat that cost Preservation most of his consciousness. This religion has been mostly lost, only kept alive and tightly guarded by the Keepers.