Chapter Text
In Terra, cruelty, ambition, and despair are woven into the fabric of everyday life.
At the heart of both Terra’s triumphs and tragedies lies a strange, luminous crystalline mineral known as Originium.
It is the foundation of Terra’s progress, prosperity, and technological advancements. Ushering in their industrial revolution and the development of Arts that define civilizations itself.
However, this progress comes at a steep price and for all its gifts, Originium is a curse in disguise.
Oripathy, a deadly incurable disease is the price of progress. Frequent exposure to Originium particles that are inhaled, ingested, or even a single wound inflicted by an Originium shard, is enough to contract the disease. These individuals are known simply as the Infected. They face not only a slow, agonizing death but also society’s hatred.
Fear of contamination, years of being stigmatized, fear mongering, and the general lack of knowledge of how oripathy occurs has led to systemic oppression. The Infected are outcasts. Shunned, hunted, even executed by most nations governments in Terra who also depend on the very mineral that causes the disease.
And yet, the mineral’s threat is not the only danger that looms over Terra.
Catastrophes are violent, large-scale natural disasters that strike Terra with little to no warning. Which also manifests depending on the climate and environment with its manifestations being haboobs, blizzards, meteor showers and others, that defy seasonal patterns or predictable timelines. One moment the skies are still; the next, titanic storms erupt with ferocity ripping through entire regions.
After each Catastrophe, the landscape is littered with Originium growths, embedding themselves into the soil, structures, and lingering in the air. This post-Catastrophe contamination renders once habitable regions into danger zones. Entire communities that are in its path are evacuated or abandoned. Survivors of Catastrophes are guaranteed to contract oripathy, due to being in an area where there is a high density of Active Originium.
These are constant reminders of Terra's volatile nature, where threats emerge from both within and beyond.
Speaking of beyond, to the north of Terra lies a region few dare travel to: the Infy Icefield.
Maps end before its borders. Expeditions vanish without trace. And those few who return from its frozen plains do not come back whole. Survivors speak of entities made of shifting voidlight and incomprehensible forms. The Collapsals, living contradictions of flesh and concept. Considered as infohazards; mere knowledge of their existence can invite corruption that depends of how far you are of one.
Signs of Collapsal activity include black snowfall, sudden hallucinations, time dilation, and the appearance of phantom-like shapes that defy observation. Northernmost nations guard their northern borders not out of territorial pride, but as containment zones.
Because some doors should never be opened.
To the far south, past the lush jungles and deserts of Sargon, lies the Foehn Hotlands. A land that was once a rainforest full of life is now a vast barren desert. The air itself seems to burn with history, echoing the screams of battles long past.
Its transformation began with a campaign unlike any before: the Khaganquest.
In the 15th year of the Common Era, the warlord Kharanduu Khagan, ruler of the Nightzmoran Khaganate, unleashed his conquest. His armies conquered swathes of land across Terra. Historians mark his conquests not just for their scale, but for their precision and brutality.
But ambition, like Originium, is never satisfied.
In the 15th year of the Common Era, the Khagan arrived at the northern borders of Sargon's rainforests. Initial skirmishes with Sargonian patrols as they camped in the outskirts of the nation. Then he was approached by a messenger dispatched by Lugalszargus the Aslan "The Shah of Past and Future" and Shahanshah of Sargon. Who rather than oppose the Khagan, Lugalzargus offered an alliance.
Why? Because something far more terrifying, an invasion was encroaching on his southernmost lands.
Collapsals had begun to seep through.
These beings emerged through structures known only as Aethergates. From it, Collapsals poured into Terra, warping it into something hostile to both body and mind. Realizing this, Lugalszargus knows that he cannot fight the threat alone. Hence, he offered Kharanduu Khagan an alliance to head south, promising a battle that will satiate his thirst for conquest. As the Khagan and Shah saw each other as kindred souls.
"For Conquest you have come. Come southwards then, with me." – Lugalszargus
The campaign that followed was the stuff of epics.
Two Legends
Lugalszargus, the “King of Kings,” Shahanshah of Sargon. A ruler whose reign shaped an era. Renowned not only as a peerless monarch but as a warrior who stood at the forefront of his armies, embodying both authority and restraint. His legacy, forged through unity, foresight, and temper power with responsibility, earning him reverence across generations as the greatest Shahanshah in Sargonian history.
Kharanduu Khagan, Great Khagan of the Nightzmoran Khaganate. A conqueror born of the steppe, relentless and uncompromising. Rising through strength and will, he carved an empire across Terra through campaigns of staggering speed and ferocity. Feared as the “Scourge of the Land,” an advancing force that reshaped entire nations in his wake.
Together, they led their armies south into a monumental campaign into the Foehn Hotlands. Bringing the full fury of their forces to bear against an enemy that is corruption made flesh.
Their campaign pushed back the Collapsals, culminating in a decisive battle where Lugalszargus and Kharanduu confronted a being known only as the "Poltergeist King."
The entity was slain.
But victory had a price.
As the Poltergeist King fell, a cataclysmic explosion wiped out the majority of the allied forces in an instant. Lugalzargus and Kharanduu vanished without trace.
In the wake of the monumental campaign left the once lush jungles desolate, transforming the lands into the Foehn Hotlands.
Legends of the campaign are passed down in history, tales, and legends.
But Terra is not a world where stories stay buried.
Unknown to all, deep beneath the sands of the south, something endured, an Aethergate, not fully destroyed. Somehow, it had survived, dormant but intact enough to pulse faintly.
It waited, and one day, it pulsed again.
A link had reached it, from a distant world far removed from the scars of Originium.