The Claws of Ezrakel

2168 AD / 20 RoS

Change is an instrument of both good and evil. It is the catalyst of creation and the force of destruction. It is said by the prophets that man was created to give change a voice. Our soul guides it with purpose and our flesh enacts it with progress. Purpose without progress is futile. Progress without purpose is chaos. Without one or the other, time is a void of desolation and entropy. With our being, we are agents of the universal order. Our nature is the gift we have been granted by the powers on high, and it is the curse we cast down upon ourselves.   Arkonis has never been a land of change. Its relics refuse to age and its people forbid reform. Kings stand over their subjects like masters to slaves. The land has been a perpetual dark age without rebirth or remission, and so It is fitting that the only crack in the feudal monotony was breached from the outside. The world of Arkonis has collided with another and change is now unstoppable. For thirty years we have dealt with the arrival of the people from a land called Irth. Some call them angels and prophets others call them demons and witches. These notions come from superstition and fear. I have found that they are people as any other. Interlopers, maybe. Vagrants, mostly. But they are neither wholly good nor evil. They are change, and this world will surely rise or fall with the insight and understanding they have granted us. -Elmorn Asorin   This is a tale of two worlds becoming one. This merger is not that of a marriage where flesh is joined in an equal union, rather it is a type of consumption where one world is swallowed by another. The feudal norms of the kingdoms have been challenged by the people of Irth and their various ideas. Technology has advanced beyond control and the culture is struggling to keep pace with it. Trains run alongside the castles and knights now fight with rifles as much as swords. The only part left to Arkonian Identity is their religion but some Irthans would destroy even that if they could. They have infiltrated the elite class of major institutions across the continent and they are only gaining more influence.   Meanwhile, Karnak, the empire of chains, lies in the north building its power and drawing in as many recource to its core as it can, enslaving the local populations in the process. Ruled by an Irthan, it acts as a haven for them. An outpost of another realm that grows by the minute. They have unparalleled technology, endless information on so many fronts, and weaponry that the world couldn't dream of in their worst nightmares. If left unchecked, Karnak may soon swallow the world in its blind mission of expansion and all of Arkonis would be swallowed whole by the gluttonous world of Irth.