| Evil Always Wins |
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Fast Facts
▌ A fantasy world where the forces of evil won.
▌ Linear story driven by player choice.
▌ You are the protagonists but you definitely aren't good guys.
▌ Political machinations and intrigue. Conflicts of morality and duty.
▌ Blood magic is cool magic and the only magic.
▌ An intended exploration of the full scope and complexity of evil beyond your standard mustache twirling villains.
▌ A fantasy world where the forces of evil won.
▌ Linear story driven by player choice.
▌ You are the protagonists but you definitely aren't good guys.
▌ Political machinations and intrigue. Conflicts of morality and duty.
▌ Blood magic is cool magic and the only magic.
▌ An intended exploration of the full scope and complexity of evil beyond your standard mustache twirling villains.
T H E M O V E M E N T OF T H E W O R L D
The Empire of the Endless did not always have that name. Once it was but a simple land on the shores of the Sea of Tears known as the Aldrun Dominion, it would best if we started here. Following the demise of several inheritors before him, the nephew of Emperor Meerus III ascends to throne of the Dominion taking the name Caesius. Soon into his reign Caesius made a peerless sorcerer from the Jeweled Cities known only as the Hand as Judge of Shadows. Caesius was an ambitious man who saw only a land crumbling to decay, To secure a future for his people and more importantly secure his own legacy he began a great restructuring of the Dominion into a machine built for war.
The Dominion marched to war for the first time in over seventy years in the tenth year of Caesius reign. The first land to fall was Brant, a steadfast fixture upon the Known World from which the Dominion was originally a vassal of sometime ago. The years of Brant's supremacy were long behind it having long ago devolved into the home of squabbling lords and starving peasants. It was here that the Hand began to show their true powers. They began to spread seeds of discord and vials of rage among the lords of Brant. Soon Brant would consume into bitter civil war with each lord assuming that they could wrest control from their fellows and then steer a cohesive force against the Dominion. The blood had saturated the earth and the kingdom had fractured beyond repair; the Dominion marched it forces in with little resistance.
This pattern of Conquest would continue for another twenty years until almost all of the Continent of Nurban lay under their control. Emperor Caesius would never live to see his dreams of unification come true. He would die of a terrible affliction - poisoned at his Harvest Manor. The Emperor was dead and the void had to be filled. It would be in the resultant fallout of Caesius death in which the Endless would have its beginnings and the world would change forever.
The Hand moved quickly to secure their power. They had made alliances and allies among a significant majority of the Dominion's military. A tale was spun of treachery and betrayal most unjust of Caesius' sons and the Hand's enemies allying together and striking a deal to divide the Dominion up among themselves. The people rallied to the side of the Hand and by the end of the brief but brutal civil war, all the opposition lay dead, the central squares running red with blood birthed from executioner's axe. The Hand took on a new title, the Undying and the Dominion became the Endless.
Thirty years have past since the death of Caesius the Unifier who in his death had become revered as a god in the lands of the Endless. Thirty years have passed and the Rule of Order has fell upon most of the known world. The Rule is simple in its structure those that submit will be free of crime, pestilence, hunger, and given a limited reign of self-governance. Those that resist will be tortured, their families will be slaughtered, their villages destroyed, their histories wiped from existence, and only then will be they granted the mercy of death if only then to be risen again as a undead thrall.
The Undying does not enforce this rule personally save for the rare insistence when they must personally intervene with the conjuring of horrors unlike the world had ever seen. Instead the honor of enforcing the Rule falls to the Voices. The Voices are composed of the original thirteen generals of the Dominion that swore fealty to the Undying during the civil war. Each with their own duty and armies beneath them they are equivalent to demigods beneath their supreme being. For their loyalty they were rewarded touched by the Abyss, they have become much like their master twisted creatures of unending existence more monster than man able to bind reality to their will. The Voices do not get along without argument and petty squabbles and plays to secure more power between them are not uncommon.
Our tale focus in upon one of the many groups pledged beneath the Voice of War, Tarkus, a group known only as the Legion. Once called Caesius' Fist they were the second and the most well regarded and decorated of the fifty legions that made up the Dominion's military. Following the ascension of the Undying things became different. The legions who had sworn undying loyalty to Caesius and no one else were seen as something of a liability. And so they were sent to their deaths in suicidal missions against unfavored odds to be replaced by the Anthem, the horde of murders and monsters that make up the Endless' ranks. And soon the Second would became the singular remaining Legion through sheer determination and luck.
And so our tale begins on the eastern continent of Zanthalia. The armies of the Endless struggle to bring the continent to heel facing fierce resistance both internal and external. The Legion had almost entirely been decimated in the Breaking of the Walls of Avless and yet they are continued to be thrown into the fire once more. Throughout it all, strife threatens to tear the Endless apart as whispers of fighting between the Voices intensifies as rumors speak of an age old prophecy that could bring death to the Undying. You are not concerned with this. You are one of a cluster of legionnaire's remaining after Avless, you are just trying to do your job and make it out of this shitshow alive.
The Dominion marched to war for the first time in over seventy years in the tenth year of Caesius reign. The first land to fall was Brant, a steadfast fixture upon the Known World from which the Dominion was originally a vassal of sometime ago. The years of Brant's supremacy were long behind it having long ago devolved into the home of squabbling lords and starving peasants. It was here that the Hand began to show their true powers. They began to spread seeds of discord and vials of rage among the lords of Brant. Soon Brant would consume into bitter civil war with each lord assuming that they could wrest control from their fellows and then steer a cohesive force against the Dominion. The blood had saturated the earth and the kingdom had fractured beyond repair; the Dominion marched it forces in with little resistance.
This pattern of Conquest would continue for another twenty years until almost all of the Continent of Nurban lay under their control. Emperor Caesius would never live to see his dreams of unification come true. He would die of a terrible affliction - poisoned at his Harvest Manor. The Emperor was dead and the void had to be filled. It would be in the resultant fallout of Caesius death in which the Endless would have its beginnings and the world would change forever.
The Hand moved quickly to secure their power. They had made alliances and allies among a significant majority of the Dominion's military. A tale was spun of treachery and betrayal most unjust of Caesius' sons and the Hand's enemies allying together and striking a deal to divide the Dominion up among themselves. The people rallied to the side of the Hand and by the end of the brief but brutal civil war, all the opposition lay dead, the central squares running red with blood birthed from executioner's axe. The Hand took on a new title, the Undying and the Dominion became the Endless.
Thirty years have past since the death of Caesius the Unifier who in his death had become revered as a god in the lands of the Endless. Thirty years have passed and the Rule of Order has fell upon most of the known world. The Rule is simple in its structure those that submit will be free of crime, pestilence, hunger, and given a limited reign of self-governance. Those that resist will be tortured, their families will be slaughtered, their villages destroyed, their histories wiped from existence, and only then will be they granted the mercy of death if only then to be risen again as a undead thrall.
The Undying does not enforce this rule personally save for the rare insistence when they must personally intervene with the conjuring of horrors unlike the world had ever seen. Instead the honor of enforcing the Rule falls to the Voices. The Voices are composed of the original thirteen generals of the Dominion that swore fealty to the Undying during the civil war. Each with their own duty and armies beneath them they are equivalent to demigods beneath their supreme being. For their loyalty they were rewarded touched by the Abyss, they have become much like their master twisted creatures of unending existence more monster than man able to bind reality to their will. The Voices do not get along without argument and petty squabbles and plays to secure more power between them are not uncommon.
Our tale focus in upon one of the many groups pledged beneath the Voice of War, Tarkus, a group known only as the Legion. Once called Caesius' Fist they were the second and the most well regarded and decorated of the fifty legions that made up the Dominion's military. Following the ascension of the Undying things became different. The legions who had sworn undying loyalty to Caesius and no one else were seen as something of a liability. And so they were sent to their deaths in suicidal missions against unfavored odds to be replaced by the Anthem, the horde of murders and monsters that make up the Endless' ranks. And soon the Second would became the singular remaining Legion through sheer determination and luck.
And so our tale begins on the eastern continent of Zanthalia. The armies of the Endless struggle to bring the continent to heel facing fierce resistance both internal and external. The Legion had almost entirely been decimated in the Breaking of the Walls of Avless and yet they are continued to be thrown into the fire once more. Throughout it all, strife threatens to tear the Endless apart as whispers of fighting between the Voices intensifies as rumors speak of an age old prophecy that could bring death to the Undying. You are not concerned with this. You are one of a cluster of legionnaire's remaining after Avless, you are just trying to do your job and make it out of this shitshow alive.
O O C I N F O R M A T I O N
Howdy I'm Hex and this is Endless. Taking inspiration from things like Malazan Book of the Fallen, Black Company, Tyranny and the like, Endless is a story about evil and all that means. To give you an idea our story focus upon a group whose history includes rampant destruction and the complete and utter eradication of entire races and they are the closest thing to "good guys" cause at least they are polite about it. Basically the general idea is what happens to a fantasy world when the Evil Overlord actually wins. When they become a living god and take over the world, when all the heroes are dead and all that's left is the slavers and the slaves. It's an exploration of duty vs morals, of totalitarian order vs free-reining chaos, and most importantly its an exploration of the ideas and driving forces of well evil.
The world Endless takes place in is old and storied. Yet at the same time much of its background has been intentionally left as vague snippets. Allowing you to extrapolate as you please. Player freedom to express and tell the story is paramount here. You, the Players shape this world and its up to you to deiced how this story ends. There is the vaguest idea of a central plot and a way forward but where this path leads to, which allies you make and which enemies you slay. It's up to you to decide which lines you are willing to cross in the name of survival and success. The story itself will go at a slower pace focusing more upon character interaction and development in the interest of creating good scenes and interactions between players rather than rushing forward from action set piece to action set piece. The focus always being on telling a good story.
So if you are at least a little bit interested why don't you come and say hi?
The world Endless takes place in is old and storied. Yet at the same time much of its background has been intentionally left as vague snippets. Allowing you to extrapolate as you please. Player freedom to express and tell the story is paramount here. You, the Players shape this world and its up to you to deiced how this story ends. There is the vaguest idea of a central plot and a way forward but where this path leads to, which allies you make and which enemies you slay. It's up to you to decide which lines you are willing to cross in the name of survival and success. The story itself will go at a slower pace focusing more upon character interaction and development in the interest of creating good scenes and interactions between players rather than rushing forward from action set piece to action set piece. The focus always being on telling a good story.
So if you are at least a little bit interested why don't you come and say hi?
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