A bunch of beings trying to survive in a broken clock
While the first set was to put the key details of the setting more concise, this set is from reading the foundation page again, and figuring out the flavor more with the ideas I've noted in my journal. As before, I want to keep things in a low impact approach, and bring it back more to the concern of time, glum introspection, and a bit of the strange historical bent.
By "extreme circumstances", a lot of magic users (not birthed) come to be because they were pushed into a state very near death, and likewise, fire and wood magic users are the most common from either tortures, diseases, or famines sweeping by. For magic artifacts, a similar scenario applies where if they're exposed to extreme circumstances long enough, they take a property in line with the given circumstances. Likewise, any amplification is dangerous for this reason, along with shifting magic users to that state (i.e. if didn't have scars, will suddenly crop up from lineage.)
It's implied there are no pure humans, and that magic is in everyone's blood to far lesser extants than obvious magic users. It is believed tribes are bonded by this, and that the daemons that would be found alongside families are reflected by what runs.
Lately, there is a bigger yearning for the ordinary life than ever, and in response to the urban-centric ideas before, it is paired with a begrudging acceptance of lives away from the massive, insular cities from before, where the cities now are relatively quieter and more humble than the ones before them. Where magic users and daemons fit, it also raises the question of where they stand in the world, and where they are respective to the greater clock.
It's not specific on which of the two historical inspirations to lean on more, and can do so to have different look across cultures. Alongside, some can be used as a statement, like a concern of longetivity would go towards stone, where wood would be temporal, etc. Feel free to play with the quaintness here, like reclining seats, obsession with vinegar, lack of rice, etc.
As of late history, it wasn't only a younger wave of daemons who struck down most of the older institutions and cities, but a class who exchanged the increasingly misanthropic ones from before to reach for more understanding of the world. Despite the drastic change and wanderings, there is a wallow in confusion and self-hatred worsened by the array of conflicts, and still a distrust towards magic users, even if they're better seen now than the crafted living tools of before.
(This one is abstract, and its inspiration is directly from a short history book concerning Late Antiquity.)
As gears are used in emulation of the clock, the recent use of them have shifted from mystery doors to these sacred clocktowers, which many of them include some countdown to an significant event believed to happen when it reaches zero. The general appearance of these are hollow towers, with an emphasis on metalworks of the clock. If it's wood, there are likely totems carved into the supports. Stained glass also exists by this point, but are small, relatively primitive, and primarily found in stone buildings.