You found me!
THE BYGONE END, RETURNED...
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For Queen. For Empire. For Radiance.
Nightmarish Devils and Dark Strangers walk beside us and hide in magicked shadows. Many lands remain forever cast under night and darkness, as Eternal Storms rage on without end or regret, while Minutes and Hours themselves cease to obey their own Laws in places now stuck in both past and future.
It is a time of murderous Princesses, drunk on brilliant Lustre, who compete for scraps and birthright, as Radiant Empress looks down upon them and their Game, knowing that one day hers will end too when Princess becomes new Empress. And in-between it all; the low yet powerful whispers of an ancient, long-forgotten being, -shrouded in void, cold malice, and twisted madness- corrupt the minds of the frail and strong alike, as Darkest Nights hide its twisted apparitions in shadow.
But still, Mankind has endured these new realities. New technologies and discoveries found through perseverance and talent, has led the Modern World into an era of spurred electrical industry, to supernatural revelations obtained from careful study and new philosophies, and to the rise of the Candle Faith and its promised Radiance; which seeks to grant commoners and highborn alike safety from the Darkest Nights, and even still some small comfort from the whispers in the dark depths of Mankind's broken mind.
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It is the 13th century since the great Exodus. It is the 13th Verd.
In Darkness; Storms Everlasting
Since after the fall of the Asharic people thirteen-hundred years ago, grand and eternal storms have always raged in place across the horizons of the Verd, within those near places known as the Stormseas. It is from these Perpetual Storms that sailor stories have described unknown 'things' hidden in the storms' eyes; things inexplicable and impossible, that spell greatest horror.
For a long time, no vessel could ever hope to pass through these storms, and no vessel certainly would ever return. That is to say, until very recently.
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The piercing of the Stormseas via the Galvan Passage led to the discovery of the New Verd of the great Pandoran Continent, and soon after innovations in the homelands gave way to the rise of Etheric Industry, which took advantage of the eternal storms by harnessing their electrical power to refine and create liquid lightning, otherwise known as Plasmic Ether.
After the discovery of the New Verd came the events of the Resurgence, which cast the Old Verd into the extended darkness known as the Darkest Nights. Ever since then, the Verd has been a dark world where the light only shines on rare or limited occasions; prompting many to turn to the comfort of the Saintly Candle or the theoretical assurances of rising sciences and philosophies.
It is only in the New Verd of Pandora where darkness is given leave for the light of proper day, as no storms or Darkest Nights plague those lands. But there are also other, more nightmarish things to fear on the new continents; things not born of reason or kindness, but of doomed, unknown dreams made real from greatest fears.
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In the darkness, there are whispers of a returning Devil of purest dark shadows known only as the Black Serpent. Supernatural events are reported to occur frequently across the world; prompting the creeping return of the phenomenon known as magic, and all its mystical effects and consequences, amidst everlasting storms.
A World Found, a World Returned
The many greater and civilized nations of the world continue their pursuits of colonial or territorial wars with each other, and the race to settle and conquer the still mostly unknown New and Newest Verds across the vast storm-seas is of seemingly adamant importance to monarchs and governments.​
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In the New Verd, the primitive native tribes of the faetouched Caidhe have had to adapt to the newcomer colonists; either by engaging in trade, diplomacy, or clever warfare. The land itself is deadly and treacherous, with many creatures and plants seemingly existing only to cause gruesome deaths to the unwary. There is little comfort there for any would-be colonists coming in from the Old Verd, yet the promise of new beginnings, fame, or wealth lure even the most foolhardy to the immense continent of Pandora.
Back in the Old Verd, ancient Wicht ruins amongst deep woods all over the Great Verd have come alive; filled with all their twisted and faelike simulacrum guardians. Across the distant world, in buried sands and sweltering jungles, lie the reactivated tombs of the mummified and returned Narum people, filled with the mysteries and treasures of arcane, astral knowledge.
The return of magic has awoken the forgotten places of the Old Verd, and all their equally forgotten curses.
Meanwhile, in cities and towns, common folk speak of whispers that awaken shadowed powers within their souls; whispers with hints of the Devil about them. Amongst these souls are also those who call themselves nixies, harpies, and faes; halfblood demihumans returned by forgotten Wicht magics. Otherwise indistinguishable from the common man, if not for their tainted blood.
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It is clear for many, that in a vast world beset by almost completely untraversable sea-storms, -and where magic once ruled, disappeared, then suddenly returned again out of nowhere- the only clear pursuit is that of colonization, scientific truth, and the unravelling of the occult mysteries; to find the reason hidden in the shadows, for why and what is happening to the world around us, and where our future part in it resides.
The Bygone, the Reborn
Philosophers, archaeologists, naturalists, and supernaturalists all pursue their respective fields across the world, and in these pursuits they have eventually returned to the places and discarded ruins of the ancient Asharic people; the precursor tribes of Caden's and Shandor's Folk, who left storm-blighted lands to seek new beginnings in the Exodus, thirteen-hundred years ago.
These Asharic ruins offer renewed insight into the mysterious happenings of our world's past, but they also curse us with the knowledge of potential futures. Insights born from dark thoughts and forlorn, whispering memories, and Predicted futures on stone slabs or deep-buried pillars, whose ill revelations seemingly were meant only for those who came after the Asharic.
Amongst the pursuits of truth was born the addictive need and desperation for the substance known as Ether; created from the siphoned plasma and energies of the world's many bizarre phenomena. It is with Ether that the modern age thrives, as this substance provides power and energy to the many contraptions of modern life and industry, as well as sustenance for the comforts of faithsworn men and women.
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Those who pursue science and occultism have become well-acquainted with the many forms that Ether takes; be it as alchemical Alka, Light-kissed Lustre, Plasmic storm-liquid, or as the astral-bound Absent Hours and Starlight.
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Galvan's Code, the many scattered works and manuscripts of disappeared genius Calvo Galvan, hide the coded and seemingly indecipherable secrets to all things in life; including miracle cures, astral insights into the greater mysteries, and the rise of advanced, mind-boggling machinery of electricity and Ether, including weapons of terrifying power. It is by Galvan and his works that we now survive this maddened world with the help of the Etheric Revolution, started in his name.
Within Galvan's Code are the secrets of Untold Futures, and the greatest nations will stop at nothing to find and obtain them all.
In the End; Radiance
Darkness and shadow-tongued omens sweep across the lands of all the Verd, such as in the frostblighted mountains and steppes of the Iron Kingdoms, the intrigue-riddled cities of the Guilder States, the faraway and strange caliphates and city-states of Sarrad, and especially in the splintered, dark Empire of Xim and Ishan in the Farthest East.
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It is said that the end times that felled the Asharic people have come again; an end that is now assumed to be the final one, as the whispers of the Black Serpent speak of its intention to swallow everything and all, once and for all. It is then understandable that many take to follow one of two paths: the accepted oblivion taught by the foreign and occult Serpent Cult, or the comfort of the familiar Candle Precepts nearer home, that promise of salvation in Radiance.
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Because amidst the doom of our world shines Lucent Light: from Umbral to Radiant to Oneiric to Astral. From these forms of mysterious Light has mankind entered into a new era, one of machines, Ether, and returned magic, as science and the supernatural merge together in an amalgamation of the possible and impossible. From these forms of Lucent Light are lands transformed, as well as the people who behold them.
In the end, Light might still be swallowed by darkness as the Black Serpent shifts and turns, but amidst it all a third path reveals itself: a Radiant Empress, who stands against the creeping darkness of the ending world. From purest Radiant Light does Her Majesty's brilliant illumination cast the shadows aside, as She leads and presides over the greatest empire to have ever existed within this world, namely the grand and glorious Caden Empire, whose territories stretch across all the Verd, and whose blue banners are known and feared by all, amidst brilliant Radiance that banishes darkness.
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At least... that's what the Empire is meant to be, as darkness continues to nibble, bite, and consume at its unlit hands.