Anuwai

A million years in the future, numerous existential threats to existence itself menace the descendants of Earth. Through a combination of genetic manipulation, augmentation, and natural evolution of humanity's various colonists on worlds far beyond Earth, the far-future children of men have endured ages of estrangement, cooperation, and strife, even while the civilizations left on Earth crumbled or were transformed beyond recognition, leaving no trace of humanity as we know it. Finally, bridges to the Far Realm have been both constructed and discovered, uncovering inscrutable beings whose very existences are antithetical to the continuation of the universe as it is known. The most advanced civilizations, the Celestials, possess the technology to know that in aeons to come, our very universe (and the planes accessed and constructed through it, forming Anuwai, the Multiverse) will come to an end, outside the scope of any of its inhabitants to alter or prevent.   With the impending timeline a known factor (thanks to the Celestials, and their art of Prognostication), representatives of every civilization to come from the womb that was Earth gathered together for the first time in many millennia to decide their fate. It came quickly to the understanding of all representatives present that, if they were to work together to counter the threat from Beyond, the Children of Men would have to find some way to reconcile their differences. No one among them could come up with any way to agree on how to move past their grievances, so instead, an experiment was conceived.   Each of the races borne from the cradle of humanity would send colonists, stripped of the memories that would poison their minds against cooperation, and be placed on the husk of the long-ago abandoned Earth, a planet left to its own devices billions of years in the past, inhabited only by what creatures might be able to survive the ecological damage wrought by late humanity as well as whatever might be the vestiges of early attempts at manufactured life, manipulated humanity, and artificial intelligence. Joining them would be a genetic recreation of humanity at their pinnacle, equally devoid of memories of their provenance (this being a concession of the Celestials, whose sheer power and influence was deemed unfit for the experiment, and indeed, it might not be possible for any of their number to have their memories wiped to comply by the strict rules of the experiment - so instead they offered this solution for a group to represent them in their stead).   The intent of the experiment would be to see, given no knowledge of history, how these cultures might fare when placed in close proximity to one another, given access only to the simplest of technologies and language. Each culture was seeded by selected representatives, with ample populations placed at selected locations on the surface of Earth in order to allow for genetic diversity. Alongside the results of natural evolution remaining on the planet were the offspring of man's early follies, as well as survivors of various alien colonial interests long since abandoned. A grand thought experiment manifested as a real-time sociological test. The nascent civilizations would be watched closely, with observers noting both their failures and successes. Given the numerous threats to post-human existence throughout Anuwai, and the likelihood that the ancient ruin of Earth, called Yorth by the colonists, would have to deal with dangers both native and alien, the far-scattered post-human civilizations would be able to learn how to once more cooperate, overcome their deeply rooted philosophical differences, and either survive or perish.   However, the plan as devised by the governments of the various post-human cultures was not without its naysayers. Dissident factions appeared among the star systems of these cultures, and while attempts were made to hear their concerns, eventually the majority decided it was in reality's best interest to ignore their qualms and forge ahead with the experiment, to see if the struggles and friendships of the progeny of humanity might be able to overcome their differences in the ultimate reenactment of that most ancient of thought experiments, the consideration of the Original Position, in which people must decide how best to live together with no knowledge of their own history or circumstances. Among the naysayers were bred members of a resistance, and what greater impact could be had but the poisoning of the experiment itself?   And so it was that agents were able to infiltrate the experiment, waking up colonists early from their slumber and letting them catch glimpses of the Automaths (the representatives selected to place the seed colonies on Earth), and through the advanced technology of these agents, grant a number of them access to either the knowledge of or ability to manipulate reality through direct control of the will. The result of this sabotage was that individuals in the experiment were both gifted with what they would come to know as access to the arcane, as well as glimpses of figures whose power could only be described as divinity.   The experiment tainted, the timeline yet stood. A second congress was held, and it was decided that even though the pure logic of the test had been disrupted by the opposition, it was still reality's best chance at finding a way to work together to defeat the machinations of the Far Realm. So, for tens of millennia, the experiment upon Anuwai, ancient Earth, continued, with the eyes of the universe affixed to its fate.   Players in this setting play as the descendants of these original colonists, living on what they call Yorth in the wake of the sabotage by the meddling of the opposition. The Automaths are worshiped as gods, technology and psionic ability beyond the comprehension of the memory-wiped colonists is regarded as magic, and dangerous monstrosities left behind by late humanity compete with the remnants of Earthbound post-human cultures, alien life that came to call Earth home, and the very same horrors from Beyond that provoked the far-flung post-human societies into conceiving in The Great Experiment in the first place. Will the players survive to give insight to the Automaths into how post-humanity might work together to prevent the impending End of All Things? Will they discover truths about their identity and history during their adventure? Or, will they die horrible deaths, dooming Anuwai to destruction?   The goal in constructing Anuwai was threefold: 1) To incorporate far-future elements into the world cosmology which are inspiring to me, 2) To build in a sense of mystery and discovery by hiding the far-future nature of the setting from the players, allowing them to uncover the truth about the nature of their player characters and the world they inhabit during the course of a campaign, 3) To keep the elements of Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons that are both expected (i.e. being able to play as any race and class presented in the official WotC materials and have them function as expected in a fantasy setting) and enjoyable (some of the fantastic elements introduced over the years, such as the elemental planes, Nine Hells, Feywild, etc.) while changing enough of the worldbuilding, lore, pantheon, and relationships between different beings to fee both familiar and fresh. I think this will allow players new to Dungeons & Dragons to really get a taste of classic D&D while keeping things fresh for veteran players. So many settings I see these days either cleave too closely to established D&D campaign settings like The Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk, or else strive too hard to change every single element into something entirely different - I'm shooting for a happy medium with Anuwai.