Enrin

Enrin is a world alone. No moon guides the night, no sun guides the day. There are no stars, there are no planets. The sky is a black-blue void from which nothing comes and nothing goes. This would not be so strange for those who live upon the world's surface, except for one thing: everyone remembers light.   No one is certain when or where the light disappeared. The peoples of Enrin can all collectively remember witnessing light, but none can describe it; they know the words "sun," "moon," "stars," "day," but they are simply that: words. Scholars have theorized, archaeologists delved, but no matter where anyone looks they cannot find a hint about where the light has gone.   The peoples of Enrin have all managed the darkness in their own ways. Most have adapted through heightened senses of touch or hearing. These people have kept to smaller groups, both for safety and for ease of resources, (it can be terribly hard to sustain a group off of the few plants and beasts that require no light for life). A very rare few elite have successfully been able to create light-producing devices that run efficiently enough to keep some pocket cities active. These glowing havens are known as "Lumoupoli" (Lumoupolis in the singular), and are the center for what the old world might have called "civilization and culture."   War had remained something forgotten while the world adjusted to its new state, and in the strained peace new inventions, ideas, ways of being, have all begun to emerge. But as the people begin to grow accustomed to the night, tensions old and new are beginning to build, and war is once again on the minds of leaders the world over. With this growing tension, an awareness of a particular trait has begun to be noticed after remaining in plain sight for so long. It seems that some people - 1 to everyone 1,000 or so - claim to see what they call "the Flash:" a brief moment of illumination in which everything appears to be as it was before, sunlit and warm. These rare few had been at first disbelieved when everything went dark, thought to be just attention seeking fools. When they refused to drop the believe charade, those in the dark turned on them, either killing them or driving them away from company. Generations passed, and those who were born to the trait learned to hide it, afraid they would face the same consequence. But when Damok Tol, the general of the Purkal nation began to experiment with his trait in attempts to use it in battle, he discovered something both wonderful and monstrous: in those moments of light, he saw there were tiny beings amidst them all, quietly moving about, placing their long, jointless hands upon the heads and hearts. What they were doing, he could not tell. But when properly startled, they instantly tore away from whoever they were latched to, and in so doing killed the host.   Damok has begun to develop a program to gather those with his trait, in a hope to train them in this form of death in order to unless a surprise assault upon his foes. Some other generals have taken note of his habits, but known not his purpose. Hoping to hinder him, they have begun their own harvesting of these traited people, conducting all manner of experiments. Meanwhile, there are some with the trait who do not see these tiny beings as simply tools for war, and are seeking to find another way of understanding this darklit symbiosis...