Development Journal #3 - The World of Apoch's Twilight
The World of Apoch’s Twilight
The world of Apoch was once a world of vast contrasts. A realm much like you’d find in any typical medieval fantasy setting, but one that had come to terms with itself and had aged and advanced. Magic grew and flourished, and it allowed for a measure of civilization and progress. Enormous metropolises of millions of people, with towers reaching into the heavens. Everyone had access to magic through the sale of cheap and easily mass produced magic items. Magical auto-carriages provided fast transport across vast distances. Crystal’s allowed for the storage of information and even the recording of plays and music, and allowed users to communicate with others across the world. Great flying ships traversed the skies. Science never progressed into technology on Apoch, because Magic had fulfilled that purpose.
Apoch had two sides to it, the light and the dark. In the West, a vast Empire of Evil ruled, with vast cities of orcs and goblins. Flights of Dragons roamed the skies, tribes of Giants built enormous cities, and the Academy of necromancers lived among cities filled with the walking dead. And in the Eastlands, an empire of good-aligned races of Humans in their tower cities, Dwarves in their woodland tree Cities, and the elves with their deep-shaft cities. The two sides had come to form a peace that had lasted 1,000 years, overseen by the pantheon of gods, the 9 Lords of Evil and the 9 Lords of Good, with the peace brokered and maintained by the 9 Lords of the Grey, the neutral gods.
However, 150 years ago the peace was shattered when the Western Empire invaded with all its might. Millions of Orcs, Goblins, demons, undead, and giants streamed across the borders, and with them the skies were dark with dragons and other flying beasts and horrors. The East quickly rallied, and the armies of Light, millions strong, stood against the incoming onslaught. The casualties were horrible, cities were devastated. It was an unimaginable tragedy, but had that been all there was too it, the war would have eventually ended as they all do, and peace would eventually be restored.
But something happened that had never been seen before. The Lord of War, the evil god of battle himself took to the battlefield, slaughtering thousands with each swing of his mighty sword. Then the Sister of Mercy, the good god of Healing came to help the armies of light. One after another, despite the pleas from the Lords of the Grey, the good and evil gods took to the field of battle, each one commanding the primal forces of the world and universe. And finally, the Lords of the Grey began to choose sides in an attempt to help end the conflict. And Apoch began to die as the world began to slowly tear itself apart. Millions were killed in days, magics and plagues and creatures never before seen or dreamt of appeared.
How the battle started is unknown. Persistent rumors stated that a Paladin crept in and assassinated the Dark Emperor, but it was never more than a rumor. And ultimately, it didn’t matter, as Apoch slowly approached its end, its Twilight…
The only gods who stayed out of the fight were the three brothers of Magic, one Evil, one Good, and the calming influence of the middle brother, the Grey Mage. They quickly devised a plan and a magic to try and save at least some of their creation from the madness and destruction of the war. They advised the highest archmages on both sides to begin gathering lore, knowledge, magic, and the best and the brightest young minds in each of the major cities of Apoch. There they would cast the Domes, impenetrable shield spells each two miles across that would protect each colony for the next 20 years, allowing the war to die down and hopefully the world to find some semblance of peace.
However, the Lords of Magic miscalculated. The warring gods escalated the battle faster than imagined, and they were forced to cast the Domes before the archmages were prepared, trapping hundreds of average citizens inside. And within hours of the domes going up, the world effectively ended. The gods all vanished off the face of Apoch, and the war ended. Inside each dome hundreds of unprepared, scared citizens were trapped with no way to know what was happening on the outside.
Life moved on and inside the dome city of Ravensport, what was once one of the pinnacles of human civilization, nearly 500 humans began to build a new life, waiting for the day when the domes would come down and they could find out what happened outside. Fortunately, the Dome was designed to help the populations survive, designed with built in day/night cycles, seasons, and even weather. Land was cleared for farming, a small grove of trees was tended to, and the few livestock that had been within the dome were carefully cared for. And life progressed.
20 years passed, and the domes did not come down. Facing the need to pass on skills and stories to the next generation, the populace began training a group of young men and women as Adventurers, with various skills they would need to explore and survive the outside. And every 10 years, a new group would be trained, all in hopes that someday the domes would come down and the world outside would still be there.
Over 150 years have passed, and one day, with no warning, no noise, no fanfare, the dome simply ceased to be. And the residents of Ravensport gathered together the latest group of Adventurers together to prepare them to set out to explore the new world….