I'm fucked beyond belief, my character's world is really shitty, especially in the long term. It's currently in the "Golden Age," which has airships and decent tech, but politically it terrible. There's an empire bent on taking over the shit, amassing power, having the best technology and minimizing the threat of Empire 2 which has war hungry generals, and will jump into war with empire 1. If you happen to live in a minor country out of those empires, you're homeland is either annihilated and totally unlivable, or occupied by the empire, leaving you in poverty, living in the slums with the constant fear that your city will be the next battleground. If you're super duper lucky either you live in a "neutral" state because your government controls unobtanium, or in a small tribe/village with a bunch of people who hate outsiders. Aside from that, there's some so-called "gods" like to "weave" history as they please, and they chose certain royal bloodlines for that.

In the long term this doesn't really matter, because in several hundred/thousand years, a huge cataclysm happens, destroying most of the population, and reverting the technology back to about the 13th century.

But there is magick.