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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tolen Mar" data-source="post: 1588277" data-attributes="member: 1295">Ok, here is a rough first draft of the intro to my campaign, more will follow as I get it typed up.We are Human……And we are not of this world.  Despite our adaptations, despite our conquests, the primitives will never let us forget that simple fact.Not that we ever could.  We did not choose this world.  Our ship, the Argosy, was the pinnacle of mankind’s power.  With it, and others like it, we could project our presence throughout the known universe.  Our scientists had discovered the Ether Realm, hyperspace to you and me.  Not truly magic, nor exactly science, it allowed our ships to move instantly to any star we wished to visit.  If our ancestors had known that the gates to the Ether realm, once open, swung both ways…The cataclysm happened almost immediately.  The Argosy was the first ship built, one of only three, though many more were planned, and several were being assembled in their orbital cradles.  The experiments that showed us the possibility of travel worked by opening a portal to a different dimension, the Ether Realm, the realm of dreams or nightmares.  It appeared perfectly safe, and we built a ship that could open a portal large enough…at least, larger than ever before.  Our scientists, and sorcerers scrambled to be aboard that ship when it left earth.  In fairness, a lottery was devised, less than half of 1 percent of the population were drawn.  My ancestors.  Amid fanfare and celebration, the Argosy left earth orbit.  At the prescribed safe distance, we engaged our Ether drives, a process that could not be stopped once started.  The portal opened, and the Argosy, protected by the drive field lay witness as the energies built for travel.  Those aboard the Argosy were forced to watch, in horror, as the cataclysm occurred.  Waves of violet energy poured past the ship.  They hit the moon, and smashed it into atoms.  Nothing could protect anyone except the Ether drive.  The crew watched as the wave pounded earth, leaving a burnt shell of a world.  All but a handful of humans died in an instant.Then the drive engaged.  And for the Argosy, Earth was no more.        *            *            *No one is certain exactly what happened.  The religious among the crew claimed it was God’s punishment for tampering with the natural order; retribution for opening the doors to heaven.  The survivors had to learn to live with the fact that they were the only ones left.And then the Ether drives disengaged.  They had burnt out.  Apparently the furnaces of Ether space were too much for it.  At any rate, it was too soon.  The Argosy was nowhere near the chosen destination.  Instead, the closest place to land the crippled ship was here: a world called Arran.    *            *            *The ship didn’t land, so much as crash.  Many more died.  Life was rough for those first few unwilling colonists.  The environment was difficult, though it could support our kind of life.  Few of our leaders survived.  Of those, most were religious zealots who swore that our blending of technology with arcane arts was what led to our downfall.  They banned the practice of magical theory, which while difficult on earth, became commonplace here. On earth, it took decades of study; on Arran, one could learn to use magic almost as easily as one learned their name.  There was an uprising, and the Church of Technology was overthrown.  They are still around, but lack the funds to be a true power.  Other religions exist, of course.  You can see their members wandering around with their robes and mystical gestures.  Now, the Theocracy of Argosy holds power. They freely spread the benefits of technology.  They teach their laws to all who’ll listen, and of course, they rule Argosy City.  Their order has made a pact, some say, with the darkness.  They say that thanks to that pact, we are allowed to live.But it is a hollow life.  The human body was not made to live in an environment like this, awash with magical energies.  That perhaps is the cruelest trick played on us by the nature of this world.  We will live forever (at least, it is assumed so), but the body continues to decay, as does the mind.  The oldest living man is Marinek.  He lives in the Citadel at the center of Argosy City.  They keep his body from decaying away deep within that tower.  He was on the Argosy when it fell from the sky.  He is over four hundred years old, born on Earth before the cataclysm.  The Theocracy treats him as a saint.  His mind is gone, and his body crumbles more every day.  Marinek is the only one who has not been forced to undergo the Talak ritual.  The Talak ritual releases the mind to travel the Ether Realm without the restraints of a human body.  Call it what you will, it’s murder or suicide.  Most avoid the ceremony until well into their second century, a few held out until after their third.  But everyone accepts their fate once the mind is gone, and body too weak to move.    *            *            *That is why I look at the stars every night, my pupils.  I wonder and dream what it must be like to have lived on a world full of innocence, a world where death is a natural part of life.  I am getting old.  I will soon accept the ritual and move on.  But at least you understand where we came from.  God alone knows where we are going.The final recorded journal entry ofExpositor Arena PasqualeTwo days prior to her Talak ritual,AC 431, Mekana 5th.</blockquote>

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