In the time of the ancients, when the world of unformed, four ancient gods rose to prominence and helped shape the world at large: Dagon, the Sapphire Octopus and creator of the seas; Garuda, the Vermillion Bird and the embodiment of warmth and sunlight; Hyeonmu, the adamantine tortoise and mother to land and all its minerals; and Kundal, the Emerald Dragon and the source of plants and mortal life.
The four gods worked to reseal the Void in order to prevent it from consuming their world and challenged their progenitor: the Dragon of the Void. After a titanic clash that shaped the world, the Dragon was banished and Samsara was saved. However, the gods began to fade shortly after; Dagon himself was consumed by the void, Garuda vanished to challenge it directly, and Hyeonmu fled into a deep slumber, waiting for her chance to return. Kundal, seeing it his responsibility to shepherd the creatures of the world, collected in secret the powers of the others and acted to create life as it would be known.
Two powerful races sprung up from the influences of Kundal: the kami, those tied to the fire, water, and wood; and the Alrisen, those tied to metal. A great war broke out between the the kami and the Alrisen races, with the Alrisen emerging victorious. These ageless beings utilized technology and magic that made them effectively unstoppable. Using the Machine on Unmaking, the Alrisen erased the Kami from reality, by extension destroying Kundal and throwing the world into chaos. They utilized immense pools of magic from the making of the world, called Arcane Wellsprings, to fuel their great machines and delve even deeper into their profane mechanical arts. However, their greed led to them creating more and more blasphemous machines that threatened the fabric of reality, eventually leading to the beings of the deep freeing Dagon from his prison temporarily, who very swiftly destroyed their kingdom.
From the remnants rose 6 factions: the desert kingdom of Akkad, the mountainous dragonborn holds of Drekiriki, the swampy kingdom of Maz’Tulor where lizardmen rule, the dwarven smithing fiefdom of Torbek, and the twin mercantile kingdoms of Verbaille and Xerstiig. These kingdoms are constantly at war with one another, using military might, trade, and magic to gain the upper hand. As their endless warfare dragged on, many of these kingdoms turned to unsavory ends to defeat their enemies – namely, abusing the teleportation and contacting properties of the Arcane Wellsprings to petition the horrors of the Void Between Worlds for power, influence, wealth, or other things. In this world poisoned by greed and corruption of the void, heroes flock to defend it – perhaps fruitlessly. But try they must.
