Elysara is an undead world, a shambling husk of its former self that has yet to realize its own demise. It was majestic once, cradle of a grand civilization which had long since spread into the stars. Mortalkind had sought out new places to live across the cosmos and warring with the horrors that dwelt in the vast darkness of space, steadily seeking to bring more and more worlds into the fold, seeding life and hope on empty rocks, pushing back against the nameless creatures who had been the enemies of life since the planets first began their motion. From Elysara, a roaring tide of life spread across the night sky, so that no matter where in the stars you gazed, someone was certain to be looking back at you.
Life on the frontiers of civilization was hard, but the great waygates established in each star system meant that a steady flow of resources from the Inner Fifty was maintained, that the eternal growth of life could push back against the indifference of the universe. And so it was with each of the many planes of reality, as the material world expanded, so too did the planes of thought and of the soul. Such was the might of mortalkind that they aimed to bridge the void between the planes of existence, to welcome creatures of each and every one to join this age of prosperity and potential.
Reality is a fragile thing; its borders strained, held together at the seams by threads of logic, predictable laws of nature ticking away in silence such that everything has its place and time. But these laws are not immutable. Magic allows them to be bent, and by the most powerful of mages, broken entirely. And so it was that the greatest mages of generations tore away at the threads, piercing the veil between planes that they might be united. The grandest cities of any world contained one such singularity, connecting the cities of the mortal world directly to their counterparts in the homes of the Outsiders.
These points of connection, the triumphs of technology, of magic, of society; they would be the first places to fall when the Calamity struck.
No one is entirely certain what brought about the Calamity, though many of the greatest scholars to have lived in its aftermath have their own pet theories. Some say it was an act of divine retribution, a sundering of reality for the hubris of mortalkind to enter into the worlds of the divine. Others suggest that it was a reprisal by the creatures of the void beyond the stars for having pushed too far. Others still simply believe that the singularities between worlds had punctured the veil between worlds and thus made their convergence inevitable.
What is certain is that the destruction of life as it was came swiftly. From each point of singularity, from each of the great waygates, and from Elysara itself, convergence spread. Points on all planes of reality converged, such that cities were merged with their counterparts on other worlds, mountains and oceans became as one, and the flesh of those unfortunate enough to share space with another became fused.
It was a time of madness, of destruction, and of regression. Peace was shattered and the remnants of civilization struck at each others' throats, each placing the blame for the end of everything squarely upon the shoulders of their neighbors as the world itself continued to crumble around them. Nuclear holocaust, biological warfare, and devastation on scales unimaginable reduced grandiose civilizations into nothing more than empty ruins haunted by the shadows of their former inhabitants.
Then the Dreamer arrived. A dragon so great in scale that it is forgivable to mistake Him for a mountain range. And then the Dreamer slept. And He Dreamed, of a peaceful world, of a world held together once more. And so it was. The last embers of the Calamity were snuffed out, reality shuddered, and became still, the survivors made their peace and began picking up the pieces. At His Will, so it has been for ten thousand years.
But there are whispers that the Dreamer stirs in his slumber, that when he wakes, the Calamity will return.
No comments:
Post a Comment