The galaxy is inhabited by a wide variety of creatures.
Over the millennia, lore, the runic language of reality, has remained largely unknown and undiscovered. The few known runes are extremely rudimentary, but when inscribed on paper and bound in a tome, they can be used to produce startling effects.
The Loremasters of the inner worlds, an occupation composed primarily of charlatans, scribe varying combinations of runes on the tome pages, searching for new effects. For these reasons, it's generally considered unsafe to activate tomes.
The usefulness of lore is restrained in that technology usually has an equal if not superior answer to the known lore. Whereas a tome can produce flames of scorching heat, technology offers hand held dragon breath sticks capable of melting steel beams.
Until…recent tomes have surfaced in the lore markets, rumored to have come from the uncharted worlds where the lost factions have been, well…lost. These tomes contain runes never before seen in the inner worlds, containing runes with unbridled power.
The surfacing of these tomes coincided with increased solar activity, and many believe the two to be correlated. Some outright condemn lore, while others have begun actively searching the galaxy for new runes and greater understanding.
The Inner Worlds
Solar storms are ravaging the inner civilized planets, stripping them of their atmospheres and reducing them to barren rocks. Those living in the inner planets are fleeing in all directions toward the relative safety of the uncharted and untamed worlds on the outer rim.
The Uncharted Worlds
Distance from the solar storms has provided some measure of protection from the devastation. However, the uncharted worlds are unsafe in nearly every other regard.
The planets are fraught with danger as roving bands of freebooters and smugglers forge and compete for trade routes. Factions fight to establish their existence and their holdings.
Lost Factions, believed to have been extinguished, have begun to reappear- stirred from their
secretive hiding places.
Many of the uncharted worlds have
terraformers, but of a much lower quality than that of the inner worlds. Terraformers found here are outdated models employed through a long since decommissioned colonization initiative. Many of the uncharted worlds have been gradually terraformed through the millennia, providing a surprising number of life sustaining planets.
The planetary technology varies from short range teleporters to wooden staves. With the inner world factories destroyed and off world supplies dependent on freebooter trade routes between other uncharted worlds, technology is becoming harder to acquire. As such, it’s not uncommon to see a mixture of technology levels, like flaming torches and battery operated flashlights.
Red Sky’s Descent
The
Red Sky was driven to the surface of one of these uncharted worlds, Arcosia, through billows of flame and black smoke. Impact craters, still burning from The Red Sky’s descent, scar the planet's surface. The survivors, those wealthy enough to own their own spacecraft or those lucky enough to have survived the impact, began settling in the inhospitable world.
Some fragments of the enormous ship have been used as entire outposts. The wreckage, where able, has been stripped of resources and repurposed elsewhere. This ship will never leave the planet: even were it repairable, it would destroy what's left of the atmosphere as it exited.
Arcosia: Planet of the Red Sky
This is not the first time Arcosia was inhabited. Overgrown fortifications lie half buried beneath the earth. The sands are filled with the detritus of ships and machines, long abandoned. Towers crumble, their rusted hulls caked with dust and sand so old it appears to be fused to the structures themselves.
The terraformers found on Red Sky are largely functional. Some of the terraformers, already working past their expected life span, began to fail when the Red Sky tore through the atmosphere. A red tear stretches across the atmosphere and continues to grow as more terraformers begin to fail.
